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CALIFONNJA 
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Mrs.    TCpnnpf.h   Mnrdnok 


THE 


Typology   of  Scripture 


VIEWED    IN    CONNECTION    WITH 
THE    WHOLE     SERIES    OF    , 


The  Divine  Dispensations 


BY 


PATRICK   FAIRBAIRN,  D.D. 

PRINCIPAL,  AND  PROFESSOR  OF^IVINITY,  FREE  CHURCH  COLLEGE,  GLASGOW 


In  vetere  Testamento  novum  latet,  et  in  novo  vetus  patet, — 

AUGUST.  QU/EST.  IN  Ex.  LXXIII 


VOL.  I 


FUNK   &   WAGNAIXS  COMPANY 

NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 
IQOO 


PUBLISHERS    NOTE. 


The  character  and  design  of  Dr.  Fairbairn's  Typology  of  Scripture,  can 
only  be  understood  by  a  careful  perusal,  which  -will  result  invariably  in 
showing  that  it  is  a  most  complete,  thorough,  and  learned  work  and  of 
inestimable  importance  to  the  Christian  Student. 

I.  It  has  been  accepted  as  the  standard  on  the  subject  of  which  it  treats 
for  thirty  years. 

II.  It  deals  with  Typology  not  only  as  a  Bible  and  Theological  subject 
simply,  but  in  its  connection  with  all  Christian  doctrine,  and  all  the  dis- 
pensations of  religion  from  the  Adamic  to  the  Christian. 

IL..  Dr.  Fairbairn  persues  his  subject  on  the  granted  historical  truth- 
fulness of  the  sacred  record,  yet  the  study  of  his  work  will  give  to  the 
student  a  clearer,  and  more  comprehensive  view  of  the  divine  foundation 
on  which  it  stands.  He  says,  "the  service  which  Typology  renders  to  the 
investigation  of  the  inspiration  and  authority  of  Scripture,  is  informal,  and 
relates  to  points  of  agreement,  of  a  somewhat  veiled  and  hidden  nature, 
between  one  part  of  the  divine  economy  and  another.  To  obtain  a  clear 
and  comprehensive  view  of  these,  one  must  stand,  as  it  were,  within  the 
sacred  edifice  of  God's  revelation,  and  survey  with  an  attentive  eye  its 
interior  harmony  and  proportions.  They  who  do  so  will  certainly  find  in 
the  careful  study  of  the  Typology  of  Scripture  many  valuable  confirma- 
tions to  their  faith." 

IV.  It  may  be  said  that  Dr.  Fairbairn  concentrated  and  harmonized 
thought  on  this  subject,  as  forty  years  ago  when  he  wrote  his  first  book 
on  Typology  the  ablest  and  most  Evangelical  Divines  were  much  divided 
in  their  opinions. 

V.  This  last  and  final  edition  has  been  prepared  in  the  light  of  the 
latest  investigations  and  developements  of  the  Bible,  its  land  and  its  history. 
Wi  thout  changing  any  fundamental  principle,  the  work  is  very  much 
enlarged  and  has  many  important  changes.     He  says :  "  The  alterations 
have  respect  to  the  literature  of  the  subject  and  modes  of  explanation  on 
particular  pionts,  rather  than  to  the  views  and  principles  which  had  been 
unfolded  in  connection  with  its  main  features.    These  have  undergone  no 
material  alterations." 

VI.  Dr.  Fairbairn  has  written  a  number  of  very  valuable  and  standard 
works,  but  the  Scripture  Typology  may  be  said  to  be  his  life  work,  and  the 
most  valuable  and  popular  of  them  all. 

Notwithstanding  there  has  been  such  a  multitude  of  Theologies,  com- 
plete and  in  parts,  multiplying  and  improving  as  they  advance,  there  has 
been  no  thorough,  hermeneutical,  philsophical,  and  practical  mastering  of 
this  subject  except  Dr.  Fairbairn's. 

The  most  able  Bible  critics  and  Divines  for  twenty-five  years  have  given 
their  testimony  to  its  completeness  We  give  just  a  sample  of  them. 

The  Church  English  Quarterly  Review,  says  :  "By  far  the  soberest,  most 
systematic  and  most  satisfactory  work  of  the  kind." 

Dr.  PYB  SMITH, — ''Learned,  judicious  and  truly  Evangelical." 

"One  of  the  most  sober,  profound,  and  thorough  treatises  which  we 
possess  on  a  subject  of  great  importance  in  its  bearing  on  Christian 
doctrine." — Archdeacon  DENISON. 

"i  now  say,  no  Bibical  student  should  be  without  Professor  Fairbairn's 
"Typology." — Dr.  S.  LEB,  Author  of  the  Events  and  Times  of  th«  Visions  of 
Daniel. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  FIRST. 


BOOK   FIRST. 

rNQUTBT  INTO  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  TYPIOAli  INTERPRETATION,  WITH  A  YIKW 
CHIEFLY  TO  THE  DETERMINATION  OF  THE  HTCAT.  NATURE  AND  DESIGN  OF 
TYPES,  AND  THB  EXTENT  TO  WHICH  THJbtX  ENTERED  INTO  GOD'S  KARTiTCT 
DISPENSATIONS. 

CHAPTER  t 

Historical  and  Critical  Survey  of  the  past  and  present  state  of 
Theological  opinion  on  the  subject, 1 

CHAPTER  EL 

The  proper  Nature  and  Province  of  Typology — 1.  Scriptural  use 
of  the  word  Type — Comparison  of  this  with  the  Theological 
— Distinctive  characteristics  of  a  Typical  relationship,  viewed 
with  respect  to  the  religious  institutions  of  the  Old  Testament,  43 

CHAPTER  m. 

The  proper  Nature  and  Province  of  Typology — 2.  The  historical 
characters  and  transactions  of  the  Old  Testament,  viewed  as 
exemplifying  the  distinctive  characters  of  a  Typical  relation- 
ship— Tyjpical  forms  in  nature — Necessity  of  the  Typical  as  a 
preparation  for  the  fulness  of  times, 63 

CHAPTER  IT. 

The  proper  Nature  and  Province  of  Theology— -3.  God's  work  in 
creation,  how  related  to  the  incarnation  and  kingiom  of  Christ,  86 

CHAPTER  V. 

Prophetical  Types,  or  the  combination  of  Type  with  Prophecy — 
Alleged  double  sense  of  Prophecy, 106 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  interpretation  of  particular  Types — Specific  principles  and 
directions,  ..,,,, 140 


\1  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   VH 

Tlie  place  due  to  the  subject  of  Typology  as  a  branch  of  Theo- 
logical study,  and  the  advantages  arising  from  its  proper 
cultivation .  168 


BOOK    SECOND. 

THE  DISPENSATION   OF  FBIMEVAL  AND  PATBIABCHAL  TIMES. 

Preliminary  Remarks, 189 

CHAPTER   L 

The  Divine  truths  embodied  in   the   historical  transactions  on 
which  the  first  symbolical  Religion  for  fallen  man  was  based,  197 

CHAPTER  H. 
The  Tree  of  Life, 208 

CHAPTER  HL 
The  Cherubim  (and  the  Flaming  Sword), 215 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Sacrificial  Worship, 240 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  Marriage  Relation  and  the  Sabbatical  Institution,        .         .  255 

CHAPTER   VI. 

Typical  things  in  history  during  the  progress  of  the  first  Dispen- 
sation,          ...  264 

SECT.  1.  The  Seed  of  Promise— Abel,  Enoch,     .        .        .265 
SECT.  2.  Noah  and  the  Deluge 272 

SECT.  3.  The  New  World  and  its  Inheritors — the  Men  of 

Faith 279 

SECT.  4.  The  change  in  the  Divine  Call  from  the  general  to 

the  particular — Shem,  Abraham,        .        .        .  287 

SECT.  5    The  subjects  and  channels  of  blessing — Abraham 

and  Isaac,  Jacob  and  the  twelve  Patriarchs,       297 

SECT.  6.  The  Inheritance  destined  for  the  Heirs  of  Blessing,  329 


CONTENTS.  VU 

APPENDIX  A. 

The  Old  Testament  in  the  New — 

I.  The  Historical  and  Didactic  portions,     ....  363 
EL  Prophecies  referred  to  by  Christ, 368 

TTT.  The  deeper  principles  involved  in  Christ's  use  of  the  Old 

Testament, 373 

IV.  The  applications  made  by  the  Evangelists  of  Old  Testa- 
ment Prophecies, 379 

V.  Applications  in  the  writings  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  .        .  384 
VI.  The  applications  made  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,   391 

APPENDIX   B. 
The  doctrine  of  a  Future  State, 396 

APPENDIX   C. 
On  Sacrificial  Worship, 411 

APPENDIX    D. 

Does  the  original  relation  of  the  seed  of  Abraham  to  the  land 
of  Canaan  afford  any  ground  for  expecting  their  final  return 
to  it  ? 415 

APPENDIX    E. 
The  relation  of  Canaan  to  the  state  of  final  rest,        .        .        .  418 


THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 


BOOK  FIEST. 

CNQUIRY  INTO  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  TYPICAL  INTERPRETATION, 
WITH  A  VIEW  CHIEFLY  TO  THE  DETERMINATION  OF  THE 
REAL  NATURE  AND  DESIGN  OF  TYPES,  AND  THE  EXTENT 
TO  WHICH  THEY  ENTERED  INTO  GOD'S  EARLIER  DISPENSA- 
TIONS. 


CHAPTER   FIRST. 

HISTORICAL   AND   CRITICAL   SURVEY   OF   THE    PAST   AND    PRESENT   STATE 
OF   THEOLOGICAL   OPINION   ON   THE   SUBJECT. 

THE  Typology  of  Scripture  has  been  one  of  the  most  neg- 
lected departments  of  theological  science.  It  has  never  alto- 
gether escaped  from  the  region  of  doubt  and  uncertainty;  and 
some  still  regard  it  as  a  field  incapable,  from  its  very  nature, 
of  being  satisfactorily  explored,  or  cultivated  so  as  to  yield 
any  sure  and  appreciable  results.  Hence  it  is  not  unusual  to 
find  those  who  otherwise  are  agreed  in  their  views  of  divine 
truth,  and  in  the  general  principles  of  biblical  interpretation, 
differing  materially  in  the  estimate  they  have  formed  of  the 
Typology  of  Scripture.  Where  one  hesitates,  another  is  full 
of  connaence ;  and  the  landmarks  that  are  set  up  to-day  are 
again  shifted  to-morrow.  With  such  various  and  contradic- 
tory sentiments  prevailing  on  the  subject,  it  is  necessary,  in 
the  first  instance,  to  take  an  historical  and  critical  survey  of 
the  field,  that  from  the  careful  revision  of  what  has  been 
done  in  the  past,  we  may  the  more  readily  perceive  what  still 
remains  to  be  accomplished,  in  order  that  we  may  arrive  at  a 
well-grounded  and  scriptural  Typology. 

I.  We  naturally  begin  with  the  Christian  Fathers.  But 
their  typological  views  were  of  a  somewhat  indeterminate 
kind,  and  are  rather  to  be  inferred  from  the  use  of  occasional 
examples,  than  to  be  found  in  any  systematic  principles  of 
interpretation.  Some  exception  might,  perhaps,  be  made  in 
favor  of  Origen.  And  yet  with  such  vagueness  and  dubiety 
VOL.  i. — 1 


2  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

has  he  expressed  himself  regarding  the  interpretation  of  Old 
Testament  Scripture,  that  by  some  ne  has  been  understood  to 
hold,  that  there  is  a  fourfold,  by  others  a  threefold,  and  by 
others  again  only  a  twofold  sense,  in  the  sacred  text.  The 
truth  appears  to  be,  that  while  he  advocated  usually  a  three- 
fold use  or  application  of  Scripture,  he  regarded  it  as  suscep- 
tible of  only  a  twofold  sense.  In  respect,  however,  to  his  mode 
of  extracting  and  dealing  with  the  typical  matter  of  bygone 
dispensations,  he  did  not  essentially  differ  from  that  generally 
followed  by  the  great  majority  of  the  Greek  Fathers.,  Bui 
before  stating  how  this  bore  on  the  subject  now  under  con- 
sideration, it  will  be  necessary  to  point  out  a  distinction  too 
often  lost  sight  of,  both  in  earlier  and  in  later  times,  between 
allegorical  and  typical  interpretations,  properly  so  called. 
These  have  been  very  commonly  confounded  together,  as 
if  they  were  essentially  one  in  principle,  and  differed  only 
in  the  extent  to  which  the  principle  may  be  carried.  There 
is,  however,  a  specific  difference  between  the  two,  which  it  is 
not  very  difficult  to  apprehend,  and  which  it  is  of  some  im- 
portance to  keep  in  mind,  when  considering  the  interpreta- 
tions of  patristic  writers. 

An  allegory  is  a  narrative,  either  expressly  feigned  for  the 
purpose,  or — if  describing  facts  which  really  took  place — de- 
scribing them  only  for  the  purpose  of  representing  certain 
higher  truths  or  principles  than  the  narrative,  in  its  literal 
aspect,  whether  real  or  fictitious,  could  possibly  have  taught. 
The  ostensible  representation,  therefore,  if  not  invented,  is  at 
least  used,  simply  as  a  cover  for  the  higher  sense,  which  may 
refer  to  things  ever  so  remote  from  those  immediately  de- 
scribed, if  only  the  corresponding  relations  are  preserved.  So 
that  allegorical  interpretations  of  Scripture  properly  compre- 
hend the  two  following  cases,  and  these  only :  1.  When  the 
scriptural  representation  is  actually  held  to  have  had  no  foun- 
dation in  fact — to  be  a  mere  myth,  or  fabulous  description, 
invented  for  the  sole  purpose  of  exhibiting  the  mysteries  of 
divine  truth ;  or,  2.  Wnen  the  representation,  even  if  wearing 
the  appearance  of  a  real  transaction,  is  considered  incapable 
as  it  stands  of  yielding  any  adequate  or  satisfactory  sense,  and 
is  consequently  employed,  precisely  as  if  it  had  been  fabulous,  to 
convey  some  meaning  of  a  quite  diverse  and  higher  kind. 
The  difference  between  allegorical  interpretations,  in  either 
of  these  senses,  and  those  which  are  properly  called  typical, 
can  not  be  fully  exhibited  till  we  have  ascertained  the  exact 
nature  and  design  of  a  type.  It  will  be  enough  meanwhile 
to  say,  that  typical  interpretations  of  Scripture  differ  from 
allegorical  ones  of  the  first  or  fabulous  kind,  in  that  they 


THE  VIEWS  OF  THE  FATHERS.  8 

indispensably  require  the  reality  of  the  facts  or  circumstances 
stated  in  the  original  narrative.  And  they  differ  also  from 
the  other,  in  requiring,  beside  this,  that  the  same  truth  01 
principle  be  embodied  alike  in  the  type  and  the  antitype. 
The  typical  is  not  properly  a  different  or  higher  sense,  but  a  dif- 
ferent or  higher  application  of  the  same  sense. 

Returning,  then,  to  the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  and  using 
the  expressions  typical  and  allegorical  in  the  senses  now  re- 
spectively ascribed  to  them,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
Fathers  generally  were  much  given  both  to  typical  and  alle- 
gorical explanations, — the  Greek  Fathers  more  to  allegorical 
than  to  typical, — and  to  allegorical  more  in  the  second  than 
in  the  first  sense,  described  above.  They  do  not  appear,  for 
the  most  part,  to  have  discredited  the  plain  truth  or  reality  of 
the  statements  made  in  Old  Testament  history.  They  seem 
rather  to  have  considered  the  sense  of  the  letter  true  and  good, 
so  far  as  it  went,  but  of  itself  so  meagre  and  puerile,  that  it 
was  chiefly  to  be  regarded  as  the  vehicle  of  a  much  more  re- 
fined and  ethereal  instruction.  Origen,  however,  certainly 
went  farther  than  this,  and  expressly  denied  that  many  things 
in  the  Old  Testament  had  any  real  existence.  In  his  Principia 
he  affirms,  that  "  when  the  Scripture  history  could  not  other- 
wise be  accommodated  to  the  explanation  of  spiritual  things, 
matters  have  been  asserted  which  did  not  take  place,  nay, 
which  could  not  have  taken  place ;  and  others  again,  which, 
though  they  might  have  occurred,  yet  never  actually  did  so."1 
Again,  when  speaking  of  some  notices  in  the  life  of  Rebecca, 
he  says,  "  In  these  things,  I  have  often  told  you,  there  is  not 
a  relation  of  histories,  but  a  concoction  of  mysteries."1  And 
in  like  manner,  in  his  annotations  on  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis,  he  plainly  scouts  the  idea  of  God's  having  literally 
clothed  our  first  parents  with  the  skins  of  slain  beasts — calls 
it  absurd,  ridiculous,  and  unworthy  of  God,  and  declares  that 
in  such  a  case  the  naked  letter  is  not  to  be  adhered  to  as  true, 
but  exists  only  for  the  spiritual  treasure  which  is  concealed 
under  it.* 

Statements  of  this  kind  are  of  too  frequent  occurrence  in 
the  writings  of  Origen  to  have  arisen  from  inadvertence,  or 
to  admit  oi  being  resolved  into  mere  hyperboles  of  expression. 
They  were,  indeed,  the  natural  result  of  that  vicious  system 
of  interpretation  which  prevailed  in  his  age,  when  it  fell,  as 
it  did  in  his  case,  into  the  hands  of  an  ardent  and  enthusiastic 
follower.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  owned,  in  behalf  of 
Origen,  that  however  possessed  of  what  has  been  called  "  the 

»  Lib.  iv.  o.  15,  ed.  Delarue.  8  Opera,  voL  ii.  p.  88. 

»  Ibid.  p.  29;  also  Princip.  lib.  iv.  c.  16. 


4  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUEE. 

allegorical  fury,"  he  does  not  appear  generally  to  have  discred- 
ited the  facts  of  sacred  history ;  and  that  he  differed  from  the 
other  Greek  Fathers  chiefly  in  the  extent  to  which  he  went  in 
decrying  the  literal  sense  as  carnal  and  puerile,  and  extolling 
the  mystical  as  alone  suited  for  those  who  had  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  true  wisdom.  It  would  be  out  of  place 
here,  however,  to  go  into  any  particular  illustration  of  this 
point,  as  it  is  not  immediately  connected  with  our  present 
inquiry.  But  we  shall  refer  to  a  single  specimen  of  his  alle- 
gorical mode  of  interpretation,  for  the  purpose  chiefly  of  ren- 
dering palpable  the  distinction  between  this  and  what  is 
strictly  typological.  We  make  our  selection  from  the  homily 
on  Abraham's  marriage  with  Keturah  (Horn.  vi.  in  Genes.). 
Origen  does  not  expressly  disavow  his  belief  in  the  fact  of 
such  a  marriage  having  actually  taken  place  between  the 
parties  in  question,  though  his  language  seems  to  point  in 
that  direction;  but  he  intimates  that  this,  in  common  with 
the  other  marriages  of  the  patriarchs,  contained  a  sacramental 
mystery.  And  what  might  this  be  ?  Nothing  less  than  the 
sublime  truth,  "  that  there  is  no  end  to  wisdom,  and  that  old 
age  sets  no  bounds  to  improvement  in  knowledge.  The  death 
of  Sarah  (he  says)  is  to  be  understood  as  the  perfecting  of 
virtue.  But  he  who  has  attained  to  a  consummate  and  per- 
fect virtue,  must  always  be  employed  in  some  kind  of  learn- 
ing— which  learning  is  called  by  the  divine  word  his  wife. 
Abraham,  therefore,  when  an  old  man,  and  his  body  in  a 
manner  dead,  took  Keturah  to  wife.  I  think  it  was  better, 
according  to  the  exposition  we  follow,  that  the  wife  should 
have  been  received  when  his  body  was  dead,  and  his  members 
were  mortified.  For  we  have  a  greater  capacity  for  wisdom 
when  we  bear  about  the  dying  oi  Christ  in  our  mortal  body. 
Then  Keturah,  whom  he  married  in  his  old  age,  is  by  inter- 
pretation incer^e,  or  sweet  odor.  For  he  said,  even  as  Paul 
said,  'We  are  a  sweet  savor  of  Christ.'  Sin  is  a  foul  and 
putrid  thing;  but  if  any  of  you  in  whom  this  no  longer 
dwells,  have  the  fragrance  of  righteousness,  the  sweetness  of 
mercy,  and  by  prayer  continually  offer  up  incense  to  God,  ye 
also  have  taken  Keturah  to  wife."  And  forthwith  he  pro- 
ceeds to  show,  how  many  such  wives  may  be  taken :  hospi- 
tality is  one,  the  care  of  the  poor  another,  patience  a  third, — 
each  Christian  excellence,  in  short,  a  wife ;  and  hence  it  was, 
that  the  patriarchs  are  reported  to  have  had  so  many  wives, 
and  that  Solomon  is  said  to  have  possessed  them  even  by  hun- 
dreds, he  having  received  plenitude  of  wisdom  like  the  sand 
on  the  sea-shore,  and  consequently  grace  to  exercise  the  larg- 
est number  of  virtues. 


THE  VIEWS  OF  THE  FATHERS.  5 

We  have  here  a  genuine  example  of  allegorical  interpre- 
tation, if  not  actually  holding  the  historical  matter  to  be  lah- 
ulous,  at  least  treating  it  as  if  it  were  so.  It  is  of  no  moment, 
for  any  purpose  which  such  a  mode  of  interpretation  mi^hi 
serve,  whether  Abraham  and  Keturah  had  a  local  habitation 
among  this  world's  families,  and  whether  their  marriage  was 
a  real  fact  in  history,  or  an  incident  fitly  thrown  into  a  fic- 
titious narrative,  constructed  for  the  purpose  of  symbolizing 
the  doctrines  of  a  divine  philosophy.  If  it  had  been  handled 
after  the  manner  of  a  type,  and  not  as  an  allegory,  whatever 
specific  meaning  might  have  been  ascribed  to  it  as  a  repre- 
sentation of  Gospel  mysteries,  the  story  must  have  been  as- 
sumed as  real,  and  the  act  of  Abraham  made  to  correspond 
with  something  essentially  the  same  in  kind — some  sort  of 
union,  for  example,  between  parties  holding  a  similar  rela- 
tion to  each  other,  that  Abranam  did  to  Keturah.  In  this, 
though  there  might  have  been  an  error  in  the  particular  ap- 
plication that  was  made  of  the  story,  there  would  at  least 
have  been  some  appearance  of  a  probable  ground  for  it  to 
rest  upon.  But  sublimated  into  the  ethereal  form  woven  for 
it  by  the  subtle  genius  of  Origen,  the  whole,  history  and  in- 
terpretation together,  presently  acquires  an  uncertain  and 
shadowy  aspect.  For  what  connection,  either  in  the  nature 
of  things,  or  in  the  actual  experience  of  the  Father  of  the 
Faithful,  can  be  shown  to  exist  between  the  death  of  a  wife, 
and  the  consummation  of  virtue  in  the  husband;  or  the  wed- 
ding of  a  second  wife,  and  his  pursuit  of  knowledge  ?  Why 
might  not  the  loss  sustained  in  the  former  case  as  well  repre- 
sent the  decajr  of  virtue,  and  the  acquisition  in  the  latter  de- 
note a  relaxation  in  the  search  after  the  hidden  treasures  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge  ?  There  would  evidently  be  as  good 
reason  for  asserting  the  one  as  the  other;  and,  indeed,  with 
such  an  arbitrary  and  elastic  style  of  interpretation,  there  is 
nothing,  either  false  or  true  in  doctrine,  wise  or  unwise  in 
practice,  which  might  not  claim  support  in  Scripture.  The 
Bible  would  be  made  to  reflect  every  hue  of  fancy,  and  every 
shade  of  belief  in  those  who  assumed  the  office  of  interpreta- 
tion; and  instead  of  being  rendered  serviceable  to  a  higher 
instruction,  it  would  be  turned  into  one  vast  sea  of  uncer- 
tainty and  confusion. 

In  proof  of  this  we  need  only  appeal  to  the  use  which 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen's  master,  has  made  of  another 
portion  of  sacred  history  which  relates  to  Abraham's  wives.1 
The  instruction  which  he  finds  couched  under  the  narrative 

1  Strom,  lib.  i.  c.  5. 


6  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

of  Abraham's  marriage  successively  to  Sarah  and  Hagar  is, 
that  a  Christian  ought  to  cultivate  philosophy  and  the  liberal 
arts  before  he  devotes  himself  wholly  to  the  study  of  divine 
wisdom.  This  he  endeavors  to  make  out  in  the  following 
manner: — Abraham  is  the  image  of  a  perfect  Christian,  Sarah 
the  image  of  Christian  wisdom,  and  Hagar  the  image  of  phi- 
losophy  or  human  wisdom  (certainly  far  from  an  agreeable 
likeness !).  Abraham  lived  for  a  long  time  in  a  state  of  con- 
nubial sterility;  whence  it  is  inferred  that  a  Christian,  so  long 
as  he  confines  himself  to  the  study  of  divine  wisdom  and  re- 
ligion alone,  will  never  bring  forth  any  great  or  excellent 
fruits.  Abraham,  then,  with  the  consent  of  Sarah,  takes  to " 
him  Hagar,  which  proves,  according  to  Clement,  that  a  Chris- 
tian ought  to  embrace  the  wisdom  of  this  world,  or  philos- 
ophy, and  that  Sarah,  or  divine  wisdom,  will  not  withhold 
her  consent.  Lastly,  after  Hagar  had  borne  Ishmael  to  Abra- 
ham, he  resumed  his  intercourse  with  Sarah,  and  of  her  begat 
Isaac ;  the  true  import  of  which  is,  that  a  Christian,  after  hav- 
ing once  thoroughly  grounded  himself  in  human  learning 
and  philosophy,  will,  if  he  then  devotes  himself  to  the  cul- 
ture of  divine  wisdom,  be  capable  of  propagating  the  race  of 
true  Christians,  and  of  rendering  essential  service  to  the 
Church.  Thus  we  have  two  entirely  different  senses  ex- 
tracted from  similar  transactions  by  the  master  and  the  disci- 
Ele ;  and  still,  far  from  being  exhausted,  as  many  more  might 
e  obtained  as  there  are  fertile  imaginations  disposed  to  turn 
the  sacred  narrative  into  the  channel  of  their  own  peculiar 
conceits. 

It  was  not  simply  the  historical  portions  of  Old  Testament 
Scripture  which  were  thus  allegorized  by  Origen,  and  the 
other  Greek  Fathers  who  belonged  to  the  same  school.  A 
similar  mode  of  interpretation  was  applied  to  the  ceremonial 
institutions  of  the  ancient  economy;  and  a  higher  sense  was 
often  sought  for  in  these,  than  we  find  any  indication  of  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Clement  even  carried  the  mat- 
ter so  far  as  to  apply  the  allegorical  principle  to  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, an  extravagance  in  which  Origen  did  not  follow 
him ;  though  we  can  scarcely  tell  why  he  should  not  have 
done  so.  For  even  the  moral  precepts  of  the  Decalogue  touch 
at  various  points  on  the  common  interests  and  relations  of 
life ;  and  it  was  the  grand  aim  of  the  philosophy,  in  which 
the  allegorizing  then  prevalent  had  its  origin,  to  carry  the 
soul  above  these  into  the  high  abstractions  of  a  contempla- 
tive theosophy.  The  Fathers  of  the  Latin  Church  were  much 
less  inclined  to  such  airy  speculations,  and  their  interpreta- 
tions of  Scripture,  consequently,  possessed  more  of  a  realistic 


THE  VIEWS  OF  THE  FATHEKS.  7 

and  common-sense  character.  Allegorical  interpretations  are, 
indeed,  occasionally  found  in  them,  but  they  are  more  spar- 
ingly introduced,  and  less  extravagantly  carried  out.1  But  as 
regards  typical  meanings,  they  are  as  frequent  in  the  one  class 
as  in  the  other,  and  are  alike  adopted  without  rule  or  limit. 
If  in  the  Eastern  Church  we  find  such  objects  as  the  tree  of 
life  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  the  rod  of  Moses,  Moses  himself 
with  his  arms  extended  during  the  conflict  with  Amalek,  ex- 
hibited as  types  of  the  cross  ;  in  the  Western  Church,  as  rep- 
resented, for  example,  by  Augustine,  we  meet  with  such  spec- 
imens as  the  following  :  "  Wherefore  did  Christ  enter  into  the 
sleep  of  death  ?  Because  Adam  slept  when  Eve  was  formed 
from  his  side,  Adam  being  the  figure  of  Christ,  Eve  as  the 
mother  of  the  living,  the  figure  of  the  Church.  And  as  she 
was  formed  from  Adam  while  he  was  asleep,  so  was  it  when 
Christ  slept  on  the  cross,  that  the  sacraments  of  the  Church 
flowed  from  His  side."1  So,  again,  Saul  is  represented  as  the 
type  of  death,  because  God  unwillingly  appointed  him  king 
over  Israel,  as  He  unwillingly  subjected  His  people  to  the  sway 
of  death  ;  and  David's  deliverance  from  the  hand  of  Saul  fore- 
shadowed our  deliverance  through  Christ  from  the  power  of 
death  ;  while  in  David's  escape  from  Saul's  hand,  coupled  with 
the  destruction  that  befell  Ahimelech  on  his  account,  if  not  in 
his  stead,  there  was  a  prefiguration  of  Christ's  death  and  res- 
urrection.* In  the  treatment  of  New  Testament  Scripture  also, 
the  same  style  of  interpretation  is  occasionally  resorted  to,  —  as 
when,  in  the  six  waterpots  of  John's  Gospel,  he  finds  imaged 
the  six  ages  of  prophecy  ;  and  in  the  two  or  three  firkins  which 
they  severally  held,  the  two  are  taken  to  indicate  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  the  three  the  Trinity;  or,  as  he  also  puts  it,  the 
two  represent  the  Jews  and  the  Gentiles,  and  the  third,  Christ. 
making  the  two  one.4  But  we  need  not  multiply  examples,  or 
prosecute  the  subject  further  into  detail.  Enough  has  been 
adduced  to  show  that  the  earlier  divines  of  the  Christian 
Church  had  no  just  or  well-defined  principles  to  guide  them  in 
their  interpretations  of  Old  Testament  Scripture,  which  could 
either  enable  them  to  determine  between  the  fanciful  and  the 
true  in  typical  applications,  or  guard  them  against  the  worst 
excesses  of  allegorical  license.8 

1  See,  however,  a  thorough  specimen  of  allegorizing  after  the  manner  of 
Origen,  on  the  "Sacramentum,"  involved  in  the  name  and  office  of  Abishag, 
in  Jerome's  letter  to  Nepotianus  (Ep.  52,  Ed.  Vallars.  ),  indicating,  as  he  thinks, 
the  larger  development  of  wisdom  in  men  of  advanced  age. 

"  C«i  Tsalr;  yli.  3  On  Psalm  xlii.  *  Trtot,  iz.  Ja  J< 


8  The  major  part  of  oar  readers,  perhaps,  may  be  of  opinion  that  they 
have  already  been  detained  too  long  with  the  subject,  believing  that  such 
interpretations  are  forever  numbered  among  the  things  that  were.  So  we 


8  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

II.  Passing  over  the  period  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which 
produced  nothing  new  in  this  line,  we  come  to  tne  divines 
of  the  Reformation.  At  that  memorable  era  a  mighty  ad- 
vance was  made,  not  only  beyond  the  ages  immediately 
preceding,  but  also  beyond  all  that  had  passed  from  the 
commencement  of  Christianity,  in  the  sound  interpretation 
of  Scripture.  The  original  text  then  at  last  began  to  be  ex- 
amined with  something  like  critical  exactness,  and  a  stead- 
fast adherence  was  generally  professed,  and  in  good  part 

were  ourselves  disposed  to  think.  And  yet  we  have  lived  to  see  a  substan- 
tial revival  of  the  allegorical  style  of  interpretation,  in  a  work  of  compara- 
tively recent  date,  and  a  work  that  bears  the  marks  of  an  accomplished  and 
superior  mind.  We  refer  to  that  portion  of  Mr.  Worsley's  Province  of  the 
Intellect  in  Religion,  which  treats  of  the  Patriarchs  in  their  Christian  Import, 
and  the  Apostles  as  the  Completion  of  the  Patriarchs.  His  notion  respecting 
the  Patriarchs  briefly  is,  that  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  respectively  "pre- 
sent to  us  the  eternal  triune  object"  of  worship, — Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost;  that  the  marriages  of  the  Patriarchs  symbolize  God's  union  with  His 
Church,  and  with  each  member  of  it;  and  especially  is  this  done  through  the 
wives  and  children  of  Jacob,  at  least  in  regard  to  its  practical  tendency  and 
sanctifying  results.  In  making  out  the  scheme,  the  names  of  the  persons 
mentioned  in  the  history  are  peculiarly  dwelt  upon,  as  furnishing  a  sort  of 
fcey  to  the  allegorical  interpretation.  Thus  Leah,  whose  name  means  weari- 
some and  fatiguing  labor,  was  the  symbol  of  "services  and  works  which  are 
of  little  worth  in  themselves — labors  rather  of  a  painful  and  reluctant  duty, 
than  of  a  free  and  joyful  love."  "She  sets  forth  to  us  that  fundamental  repul- 
siveness  or  stubbornness  of  our  nature,  whose  proper  and  ordained  discipline 
is  the  daily  taskwork  of  duty,  as  done  not  to  man,  nor  to  self,  but  to  God." 
Afterwards  Leah  is  identified  with  the  ox  as  the  symbol  of  stubbornness  and 
wearisome  labor;  and  so  "with  Leah  the  ox  symbolizes  our  taskwork  of  duty, 
and  our  capacity  for  it,"  while  the  sheep  (Rachel  signifying  sheep)  symbol- 
izes "our  labors  of  love,  i.  e.,  our  real  rest  and  capacity  for  it" — (P.  71,  113, 
128. )  It  may  be  conjectured  from  this  specimen  what  ingenuities  require  to 
be  plied,  before  the  author  can  get  through  all  the  twelve  sons  of  Jacob,  so  as 
to  make  them  symbols  of  the  different  graces  and  operations  of  a  Christian  life. 
We  object  to  the  entire  scheme, — 1.  Because  it  is  perfectly  arbitrary.  Though 
Scripture  sometimes  warrants  us  in  laying  stress  on  names,  as  expressive  of 
spiritual  ideas  or  truths  connected  with  the  persons  they  belong  to,  yet  it  is 
only  when  the  history  itself  draws  attention  to  them,  and  even  then  they 
never  stand  alone,  as  the  names  often  do  with  Mr.  Worsley,  the  only  keys  to 
the  import  of  the  transactions:  as  if,  where  acts  entirely  fail,  or  where  they 
appear  to  be  at  variance  with  the  symbolical  ideal,  the  key  were  still  to  be 
found  in  the  name.  Scripture  nowhere,  for  example,  lays  any  stress  upon 
the  names  of  Leah  and  Bachel;  while  it  very  pointedly  refers  to  the  bad  eyes 
of  the  one,  and  the  attractive  comeliness  of  the  other.  And  if  we  were  inclined 
to  allegorize  at  all,  we  should  deem  it  more  natural,  with  Justin  Martyr 
(Trypho,  c.  42)  and  Jerome  (on  Hos.  xii.  3),  to  regard  Leah  as  the  symbol  of 
the  blear-eyed  Jewish  Church,  and  Rachel  of  the  beloved  Church  of  the  gospel. 
Even  this,  however,  is  quite  arbitrary,  for  there  is  nothing  properly  in  com- 
mon between  the  symbol  and  the  thing  symbolized — no  real  bond  of  connec- 
tion uniting  them  together.  And  if,  by  tracing  out  such  lines  of  resemblance, 
we  might  indulge  in  a  pleasing  exercise  of  fancy,  we  can  never  deduce  from 
them  a  revelation  of  God's  mind  and  will.  2.  But  further,  such  explanations 
offend  against  great  fundamental  principles — the  principle,  for  example,  that 
the  Father  can  not  be  represented  as  entering  into  union  with  the  Church, 
viewed  as  distinct  from  the  Son  and  the  Spirit;  and  the  principle  that  a 


THE  VIEWS  OF  THE  REFOBMEBS.  9 

also  maintained,  to  the  natural  and  grammatical  sense.  The 
leading  spirits  of  the  Keformation  were  here  also  the  great 
authors  of  reform.  Luther  denounced  mystical  and  allegor- 
ical interpretations  as  "  trifling  and  foolish  fables,  with  which 
the  Scriptures  were  rent  into  so  many  and  diverse  senses, 
that  silly  poor  consciences  could  receive  no  certain  doctrine 
of  any  thing." l  Calvin,  in  like  manner,  declares  that  "  the 
true  meaning  of  Scripture  is  the  natural  and  obvious  mean- 
ing, by  which  we  ought  resolutely  to  abide " ;  and  speaks  of 
the  "licentious  system"  of  Origen  and  the  allegorists,  as 
"  undoubtedly  a  contrivance  of  Satan  to  undermine  the  au- 
thority of  Scripture,  and  to  take  away  from  the  reading  of  it 
the  true  advantage."  *  In  some  of  his  interpretations,  espe- 
cially on  the  prophetical  parts  of  Scripture,  he  even  went  to 
an  extreme  in  advocating  what  he  here  calls  the  natural  and 
obvious  meaning,  and  thereby  missed  the  more  profound  im- 
port, which,  according  to  the  elevated  and  often  enigmatical 
style  of  prophecy,  it  was  the  design  of  the  Spirit  to  convey. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  their  avowed  principles  of  inter- 
pretation, the  writers  of  the  Reformation  period  not  unfre- 
quently  fell  into  the  old  method  of  allegorizing,  and  threw 
out  typical  explanations  of  a  kind  that  can  not  stand  a  careful 
scrutiny.  It  were  quite  easy  to  produce  examples  of  this  from 
the  writings  of  those  who  lived  at,  or  immediately  subsequent 
to,  the  Reformation ;  but  it  would  be  of  no  service  as  regards 
our  present  object,  since  their  attention  was  comparatively 
little  drawn  to  the  subject  of  types ;  and  none  of  them  at- 
tempted to  construct  a  well-defined  and  pr6perly  grounded 
typological  system. 

III.  We  pass  on,  therefore,  to  a  later  period — about  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century — when  the  science  of 
theology  began  to  be  studied  more  in  detail,  and  the  types 
consequently  received  a  more  formal  consideration.  About 
that  period  arose  what  is  called  the  Cocceian  school,  which, 
though  it  did  not  revive  the  double  sense  of  the  Alexandrian 
(for  Cocceius  expressly  disclaimed  any  other  sense  of  Script- 
ure than  the  literal  and  historical  one),  yet  was  chargeable 

sinful  act  or  an  improper  relation  can  not  be  the  symbol  of  what  is  divine 
and  holy.  In  such  a  case  there  never  can  be  any  real  agreement.  Who, 
indeed,  can  calmly  contemplate  the  idea  that  Abraham's  connection  with 
Hagar,  or  Jacob's  connection  with  the  two  sisters  and  their  handmaids — in 
themselves  both  manifestly  wrong,  and  receiving  on  them  manifest  tokens  of 
God's  displeasure  in  providence — should  be  the  chosen  symbol  of  God's  own 
relation  to  the  Church  ?  How  very  different  an  allegorizing  of  this  sort  ia 
from  the  typical  use  made  of  them  in  Scripture,  will  be  shown  in  the  sequel 
i  On  GaL  iv.  26.  *  On  Gal.  iv.  22. 


10  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUEE. 

in  another  respect  with  a  participation  in  the  caprice  and  ir- 
regularity of  the  ancient  allegorists.  Cocceius  nimself,  lesa 
distinguished  as  a  systematic  writer  in  theology  than  as  a 
Hebrew  scholar  and  learned  expositor  of  Scripture,  left  no 
formal  enunciation  of  principles  connected  with  typical  or 
allegorical  interpretations ;  and  it  is  chiefly  from  his  annota 
tions  on  particular  passages,  and  the  more  systematic  works 
of  his  followers,  that  these  are  to  be  gathered.  How  freely, 
however,  he  was  disposed  to  draw  upon  Old  Testament  his- 
tory for  types  of  gospel  things,  may  be  understood  from  a 
single  example:  his  viewing  what  is  said  of  Asshur  going 
out  and  building  Nineveh,  as  a  type  of  the  Turk  or  Mussul- 
man power,  which  at  once  sprang  from  the  kingdom,  and 
shook  the  dominion  of  Antichrist.1  He  evidently  conceived 
that  every  event  in  Old  Testament  history,  which  had  a  for- 
mal resemblance  to  something  under  the  New,  was  to  be 
regarded  as  typical.  And  that,  even  notwithstanding  his 
avowed  adherence  to  but  one  sense  of  Scripture,  he  could 
occasionally  adopt  a  second,  appears  alone  from  his  allegori- 
cal interpretation  of  the  8th  rsalm,  according  to  which  the 
sheep  there  spoken  of,  as  being  put  under  man,  are  Christ's 
flock;  the  oxen,  those  who  labor  in  Christ's  service;  the 
beasts  of  the  field,  such  as  are  strangers  to  the  city  and  king- 
dom of  God,  barbarians  and  savages ;  the  fowl  of  the  air  and 
fish  of  the  sea,  persons  at  a  still  greater  distance  from  godli- 
ness; so  that,  as  he  concludes,  there  is  nothing  so  wild  and 
intractable  on  earth  but  it  shall  be  brought  under  the  rule 
and  dominion  of  Christ. 

It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  the  views  of  Cocceius 
differed  materially  from  those  which  were  held  by  some  who 
preceded  him ;  and  it  would  seem  rather  to  have  been  owing 
to  his  eminence  generally  as  a  commentator  than  to  any  dis- 
tinctive peculiarity  in  his  typological  principles,  that  he 
came  to  be  so  prominently  identified  with  the  school,  which 
from  him  derived  the  name  of  Cocceian.  If  we  turn  to  one 
of  the  earlier  editions  of  Glass's  Philohqia  Sacra,  published 
before  Cocceius  commenced  his  critical  labors  (the  first  was 
published  as  early  as  1623),  we  shall  find  the  principles  of 
allegorical  and  typical  interpretations  laid  down  with  a  lati- 
tude which  Cocceius  himself  could  scarcely  have  quarrelled 
with.  Indeed,  we  shall  find  few  examples  in  his  writings 
that  might  not  be  justified  on  the  principles  stated  by  Glass ; 
and  though  the  latter,  in  his  section  on  allegories,  has  to 
throw  himself  back  chiefly  on  the  Fathers,  he  yet  produces 

1  Our.  Prior,  in  Gen.  z.  1L 


THE  COCCEIAN  SCHOOL.  11 

some  quotations  in  support  of  his  views,  both  on  these  and 
on  types,  from  some  writers  of  his  own  age.  There  seems  to 
have  oeen  no  essential  difference  between  the  typological 
principles  of  Glass,  Cocceius,  Witsius,  and  Vitnnga;  and 
though  the  first  wrote  some  time  before,  and  the  last  about 
half  a  century  later  than  Cocceius,  no  injustice  can  be  done 
to  any  of  them  by  classing  them  together,  and  referring  indif- 
ferently to  their  several  productions.  Like  the  Fathers,  they 
did  not  sufficiently  distinguish  between  allegorical  and  typi- 
cal interpretations,  but  regarded  the  one  as  only  a  particular 
form  of  the  other,  and  both  as  equally  warranted  by  New 
Testament  Scripture.  Hence  the  rules  they  adopted  were  to 
a  great  extent  applicable  to  what  is  allegorical  in  the  proper 
sense,  as  well  as  typical,  though  for  the  present  we  must  con- 
fine ourselves  to  the  typical  department.  They  held,  then, 
that  there  was  a  twofold  sort  of  types,  the  one  innate,  consist- 
ing of  those  which  Scripture  itself  has  expressly  asserted  to 
possess  a  typical  character;  the  other  inferred,  consisting  of 
such  as,  though  not  specially  noticed  or  explained  in  Scrip- 
ture, were  yet,  on  probable  grounds,  inferred  by  interpreters 
as  conformable  to  the  analogy  of  faith,  and  the  practice  of 
the  inspired  writers  in  regard  to  similar  examples.1  This 
latter  class  were  considered  not  less  proper  and  valid  than 
the  other;  and  pains  were  taken  to  distinguish  them  from 
those  which  were  sometimes  resorted  to  by  Papists,  and 
which  were  at  variance  with  the  analogies  just  mentioned. 
Of  course,  from  their  very  nature,  they  could  only  be  em- 
ployed for  the  support  and  confirmation  of  truths  already  re- 
ceived, and  not  to  prove  what  was  in  itself  doubtful.  But 
not  on  that  account  were  they  to  be  less  carefully  searched 
for,  or  less  confidently  used,  because  thus  only,  it  was  main- 
tained, could  Christ  be  found  in  all  Scripture,  which  through- 
out testifies  of  Him. 

It  is  evident  alone,  from  this  general  statement,  that  there 
was  something  vague  and  loose  in  the  Cocceian  system,  which 
left  ample  scope  for  the  indulgence  of  a  luxuriant  fancy.  Nor 
can  we  wonder  that,  in  practice,  a  mere  resemblance,  however 
accidental  or  trifling,  between  an  occurrence  in  Old  and  an- 
other in  New  Testament  times,  was  deemed  sufficient  to  con- 
stitute the  one  a  type  of  the  other.  Hence  in  the  writings  of 
the  eminent  and  learned  men  above  referred  to,  we  find  the 
name  of  Abel  (emptiness)  viewed  as  prefiguring  our  Lord's 
humiliation;  the  occupation  of  Abel,  Christ's  office  as  the 

1  Phttologia  Sac.  lib.  ii.  P.  i.  Tract,  ii.  sect.  4.  Vitringa,  Obs.  Sac.  vol.  it 
lib.  vi.  o.  20.  Witsius,  De  (Econom.  lib.  iv.  c.  6. 


12  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Shepherd  of  Israel ;  the  withdrawal  of  Isaac  from  his  father's 
house  to  the  land  of  Moriah,  Christ's  being  led  out  of  the  tem- 
ple to  Calvary;  Adam's  awaking  out  of  sleep,  Christ's  resur- 
rection from  the  dead ;  Samson's  meeting  a  young  lion  by  the 
way,  and  the  transactions  that  followed,  Christ's  meeting  Saul 
on  the  road  to  Damascus,  with  the  important  train  of  events 
to  which  it  led ;  David's  gathering  to  nimself  a  party  of  the 
distressed,  the  bankrupt,  and  discontented,  Christ's  receiving 
into  His  Church  publicans  and  sinners;  with  many  others  of 
a  like  nature. 

Multitudes  of  examples  perfectly  similar — that  is,  equally 
destitute  of  any  proper  foundation  in  principle — are  to  be 
found  in  writers  of  our  own  country,  such  as  Mather,1  Reach,1 
Worden,'  J.  Taylor,4  Guild,6  who  belonged  to  the  same  school 
of  interpretation,  and  who  nearly  all  lived  toward  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Excepting  the  two  first, 
they  make  no  attempt  to  connect  their  explanations  with  any 
principles  of  interpretation,  and  these  two  very  sparingly. 
Their  works  were  all  intended  for  popular  use,  and  rather 
exhibited  by  particular  examples,  than  systematically  ex- 
pounded the  nature  of  their  views.  They,  however,  agreed 
in  admitting  inferred  as  well  as  innate  types,  but  differed — 
more  perhaps  from  constitutional  temperament  than  on  the- 
oretical grounds — in  the  extent  to  which  they  respectively 
carried  the  liberty  they  claimed  to  go  beyond  the  explicit 
warrant  of  New  Testament  Scripture.  Mather  in  particular, 
and  Worden,  usually  confine  themselves  to  such  types  as 
have  obtained  special  notice  of  some  kind  from  the  writers 
of  the  New  Testament;  though  they  held  the  principle,  that 
"where  the  analogy  was  evident  and  manifest  between  things 
under  the  Law  and  things  under  the  Gospel,  the  one  were  to 
be  concluded  (on  the  ground  simply  of  that  analogy)  to  be 
types  of  the  other."  How  far  this  warrant  from  analogy  was 
thought  capable  of  leading,  may  be  learned  from  Taylor  and 
Guild,  especially  from  the  latter,  who  has  no  fewer  than  forty- 
nine  typical  resemblances  between  Joseph  and  Christ,  and 
seventeen  between  Jacob  and  Christ,  not  scrupling  to  swell 
the  number  by  occasionally  taking  in  acts  of  sin,  as  well  as 
circumstances  of  an  altogether  trivial  nature.  Thus  Ja- 
cob's being  a  supplanter  of  his  brother,  is  made  to  represent 
Christ's  supplanting  death,  sin,  and  Satan ;  his  being  obedient 
to  his  parents  in  all  things,  Christ's  subjection  to  His  heav- 

1  The  Figures  and  Types  of  the  Old  Testament. 

*  Key  to  open  the  Scripture  Metaphors  and  Types. 

*  The  Types  Unveiled;  or,  the  Gospel  Picked  out  of  the  Legal  Ceremonies. 

*  Moses  and  Aaron.  «  Moses  Unveiled. 


THE  COCCEIAN  SCHOOL.  18 

enly  Father  and  His  earthly  parents ;  his  purchasing  his  birth- 
right by  red  pottage,  and  obtaining  the  blessing  by  present- 
ing savory  vension  to  his  father,  clothed  in  Esau's  garment, 
Christ's  purchasing  the  heavenly  inheritance  to  us  by  His  red 
blood,  and  obtaining  the  blessing  by  offering  up  the  savory 
meat  of  His  obedience,  in  the  borrowed  garment  of  our  na- 
ture, etc. 

Now,  we  may  affirm  of  these,  and  many  similar  examples 
occurring  in  writers  of  the  same  class,  that  the  analogy  they 
found  upon  was  a  merely  superficial  resemblance  appearing 
between  certain  things  in  Old  and  certain  things  in  New  Tes- 
tament Scripture.  But  resemblances  of  this  sort  are  so  ex- 
tremely multifarious,  and  appear  also  so  different  according 
to  the  point  of  view  from  which  they  are  contemplated,  that 
it  was  obviously  possible  for  any  one  to  take  occasion  through 
them  to  introduce  the  most  frivolous  conceits,  and  to  carica- 
ture rather  than  vindicate  the  grand  theme  of  the  gospel. 
Then,  if  such  weight  was  fitly  attached  to  mere  resemblances 
between  the  Old  and  the  New,  even  when  they  were  alto- 
gether of  a  slight  and  superficial  kind,  why  should  not  pro- 
fane as  well  as  sacred  history  be  ransacked  for  them  ?  What, 
for  example,  might  prevent  Romulus  (seeing  that  God  is  in 
all  history,  if  this  actually  were  history)  assembling  a  band 
of  desperadoes,  and  founding  a  world-wide  empire  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber,  from  serving,  as  well  as  David  in  the  cir- 
cumstances specified  above,  to  typify  the  procedure  of  Christ 
in  calling  to  Him  publicans  and  sinners  at  the  commencement 
of  His  kingdom  ?  As  many  points  of  resemblance  might  be 
found  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other ;  and  the  two  transac- 
tions in  ancient  history,  as  here  contemplated,  stood  much  on 
the  same  footing  as  regards  the  appointment  of  God ;  for  both 
alike  were  the  offspring  of  human  policy,  struggling  against 
outward  difficulties,  and  endeavoring  with  such  materials  as 
were  available  to  supply  the  want  of  better  resources.  And 
thus,  by  pushing  the  matter  beyond  its  just  limits,  we  reduce 
the  sacred  to  a  level  with  the  profane,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
throw  an  air  of  uncertainty  over  the  whole  aspect  of  its  typi- 
cal character. 

That  the  Cocceian  mode  of  handling  the  typical  matter  of 
ancient  Scripture  so  readily  admitted  of  the  introduction  of 
trifling,  far-fetched,  and  even  altogether  false  analogies,  was 
one  of  its  capital  defects.  It  had  no  essential  principles  or 
fixed  rules  by  which  to  guide. its  interpretations — set  up  no 
proper  landmarks  along  the  field  of  inquiry — left  room  on 
every  hand  for  arbitrariness  and  caprice  to  enter.  It  was 
this,  perhaps,  more  than  any  thing  else,  which  tended  tv 


14  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKIPTUEE. 

bring  typical  interpretations  into  disrepute,  and  disposed 
men,  in  proportion  as  the  exact  and  critical  study  of  Script- 
ure came  to  oe  cultivated,  to  regard  the  subject  of  its  typology 
as  hopelessly  involved  in  conjecture  and  uncertainty.  Yet 
this  was  not  the  only  fault  inherent  in  the  typological  system 
now  under  consideration.  It  failed,  more  fundamentally  still, 
in  the  idea  it  had  formed  of  the  connection  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  in  God's  dispensations — between  the  type  and 
the  thing  typified — which  came  to  be  thrown  mainly  upon 
the  mere  forms  and  accidents  of  things,  to  the  comparative 
neglect  of  the  great  fundamental  principles  which  are  com- 
mon alike  to  all  dispensations,  and  in  which  the  more  vital 
part  of  the  connection  must  be  sought.  It  was  this  more 
radical  error  which,  in  fact,  gave  rise  to  the  greater  -portion 
of  the  extravagances  that  disfigured  the  typical  illustrations 
of  our  elder  divines;  for  it  naturally  led  them  to  make  ac- 
count of  coincidences  that  were  often  unimportant,  and  some- 
times only  apparent.  And  not  only  so ;  but  it  also  led  them 
to  undervalue  the  immediate  object  and  design  of  the  types 
in  their  relation  to  those  who  lived  amongst  them.  While 
these  as  types  speak  a  language  that  can  be  distinctly  and 
intelligently  understood  only  by  us,  who  are  privileged  to 
read  their  meaning  in  the  light  of  gospel  realities,  they  yet 
had,  as  institutions  in  the  existing  worship,  or  events  in  the  cur- 
rent providence  of  God,  a  present  purpose  to  accomplish,  apart 
from  the  prospective  reference  to  future  times,  anc£  we  might 
almost  say,  as  much  as  if  no  such  reference  had  belonged  to 
them. 

IV.  These  inherent  errors  and  imperfections  in  the  typo- 
logical system  of  the  Cocceian  school,  were  not  long  in  lead- 
ing to  its  general  abandonment.  But  theology  had  little  rea- 
son to  boast  of  the  change.  For  the  system  that  supplanted 
it,  without  entering  at  all  into  a  more  profound  investigation 
of  the  subject,  or  attempting  to  explain  more  satisfactorily 
the  grounds  of  a  typical  connection  between  the  Old  and  the 
New,  simply  contented  itself  with  admitting  into  the  rank  of 
types  what  had  been  expressly  treated  as  such  in  the  Script- 
ure itself,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  besides.  This  seemed  to  oe 
the  only  safeguard  against  error  and  extravagance.1  And 

1  The  following  critique  of  Buddeus,  -which  belongs  to  the  earlier  part  of 
last  century,  already  points  in  this  direction:  "It  can  not  certainly  be  denied 
that  the  Cocceians,  at  least  some  of  them,  have  carried  this  matter  too  far.  For, 
besides  that  they  everywhere  seem  to  find  images  and  types  of  future  things, 
where  other  people  can  discern  none,  when  they  come  to  make  the  application 
to  the  antitype,  they  not  unfrequently  descend  to  minute  and  even  trifling 
things,  nay,  advance  what  is  utterly  insignificant  and  ludicrous,  exposing  holy 


THE   SCHOOL  OF  MAESH.  15 

yet,  we  fear,  other  reasons  of  a  less  justifiable  nature  contrib- 
uted not  a  little  to  produce  the  result.  An  unhappy  current 
had  begun  to  set  in  upon  the  Protestant  Church,  in  some 
places  while  Cocceius  still  lived,  and  in  others  soon  after  his 
aeath,  which  disposed  many  of  her  more  eminent  teachers  to 
slight  the  evangelical  element  in  Christianity,  and,  if  not 
utterly  to  lose  sight  of  Christ  Himself,  at  least  to  disrelish 
and  repudiate  a  system  which  delighted  to  find  traces  of  Him 
in  every  part  of  revelation.  It  was  the  redeeming  point  of 
the  earlier  typology,  which  should  be  allowed  to  go  far  in 
extenuating  the  occasional  errors,  connected  with  it,  that  it 
kept  the  work  and  kingdom  of  Christ  ever  prominently  in 
view,  as  the  grand  scope  and  end  of  all  God's  dispensations. 
It  felt,  if  we  may  so  speak,  correctly,  whatever  it  may  have 
wanted  in  the  requisite  depth  and  precision  of  thought.  But 
towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  a  general  coldness  very  commonly  dis- 
covered itself,  both  in  the  writings  and  the  lives  of  even  the 
more  orthodox  sections  of  the  Church.  The  living  energy 
and  zeal  which  had  achieved  such  important  results  a  cen- 
tury before,  either  inactively  slumbered,  or  spent  itself  in 
doctrinal  controversies ;  and  the  faith  of  the  Church  was  first 
corrupted  in  its  simplicity,  and  then  weakened  in  its  founda- 
tions oy  the  pernicious  influence  of  a  widely  cultivated,  but 
essentially  antichristian  philosophy.  In  such  circumstances 
Christ  was  not  allowed  to  maintain  His  proper  place  in  the 
New  Testament ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  He  should 
have  been  nearly  banished  from  the  Old. 

Vitringa,  who  lived  when  this  degeneracy  from  better  times 
had  made  considerable  progress,  attributed  to  it  much  of  that 
distaste  which  was  then  beginning  to  prevail  in  regard  to 
typical  interpretations  of  Scripture.  With  special  reference 
to  the  work  of  Spencer  on  the  Laws  of  the  Hebrews, — a  work 
not  less  remarkable  for  its  low-toned,  semi-heathenish  spirit, 
than  for  its  varied  and  well-digested  learning, — he  lamented 
the  inclination  that  appeared  to  seek  for  the  grounds  and 
reasons  of  the  Mosaic  institutions  in  the  mazes  of  Egyptian 

writ  to  the  mockery  of  the  profane.  And  here  it  may  be  proper  to  notice  the 
fates  of  exegetical  theology;  since  that  intemperate  rage  for  allegories  which 
appeared  in  Origen  and  the  Fathers,  and  which  had  been  condemned  by  the 
schoolmen,  was  again,  after  an  interval,  though  under  a  different  form,  pro- 
duced anew  upon  the  stage.  For  this  typical  interpretation  differs  from  the 
allegorical  only  in  the  circumstance,  that  respect  is  had  in  it  to  the  future 
things  which  are  adumbrated  by  the  types:  and  so,  the  typical  may  be  regarded 
as  a  sort  of  allegorical  interpretation.  But  in  either  way  the  amplest  scope  ia 
afforded  for  the  play  of  a  luxuriant  fancy  and  a  fertile  invention." — L  F.  3uddei 
Isagoge,  ii.  hist.  Theolog.  1730. 


16  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCIUPTUBR 

idolatry,  instead  of  endeavoring  to  discover  in  them  the 
mysteries  of  the  gospel.  These,  he  believed,  the  Holy  Spirit 
had  plainly  intimated  to  be  couched  there ;  and  they  shone, 
indeed,  so  manifestly  through  the  institutions  themselves,  that 
it  seemed  impossible  for  any  one  not  to  perceive  the  type,  who 
recognized  the  antitype.  Nor  could  he  conceal  his  fear,  that 
the  talent,  authority,  and  learning  of  such  men  as  Spencer 
would  gain  extensive  credit  for  their  opinions,  and  soon  bring 
the  Typology  of  Scripture,  as  he  understood  it,  into  general 
contempt.1  In  this  apprehension  he  was  certainly  not  mis- 
taken. Another  generation  had  scarcely  passed  away  when 
Dathe  published  an  edition  of  the  Sacred  Philology  of  Glass, 
in  which  the  section  on  types,  to  which  we  have  already  re- 
ferred, was  wholly  omitted,  as  relating  to  a  subject  no  longer 
thought  worthy  of  a  recognized  place  in  the  science  of  an 
enlightened  Theology.  The  rationalistic  spirit,  in  the  progress 
of  its  antichristian  tendencies,  had  now  discarded  the  innate, 
as  well  as  the  inferred  types  of  the  elder  divines ;  and  the  con- 
venient principle  of  accommodation,  which  was  at  the  same 
time  introduced,  furnished  an  easy  solution  for  those  passages 
in  New  Testament  Scripture  which  seemed  to  indicate  a  typi- 
cal relationship  between  the  past  and  the  future.  It  was  re- 
garded as  only  an  adaptation,  originating  in  Jewish  prejudice 
or  conceit,  of  the  facts  and  institutions  of  an  earlier  age  to 
things  essentially  different  under  the  gospel;  but  now,  since 
the  state  of  feeling  that  gave  rise  to  it  no  longer  existed,  de- 
servedly suffered  to  fall  into  desuetude.  And  thus  the  bond 
was  virtually  broken  by  the  hand  of  these  rationalizing  the- 
ologians between  the  Old  and  the  New  in  revelation ;  and  the 
records  of  Christianity,  when  scientifically  interpreted,  were 
found  to  have  marvellously  little  in  common  with  those  of 
Judaism. 

In  Britain  various  causes  contributed  to  hold  in  check  this 
downward  tendency,  and  to  prevent  it  from  reaching  the 
same  excess  of  dishonor  to  Christ  which  it  soon  attained  on 
the  Continent.  Even  persons  of  a  cold  and  philosophical 
temperament,  such  as  Clarke  and  Jortin,  not  only  wrote  in 
defence  of  types,  as  having  a  certain  legitimate  use  in  revela- 
tion, but  also  admitted  more  within  the  circle  of  types  than 
Scripture  itself  has  expressly  applied  to  gospel  times.1  They 
urged,  indeed,  the  necessity  of  exercising  the  greatest  cau- 
tion in  travelling  beyond  the  explicit  warrant  of  Scripture ; 

'  Obs.  Sac.  voL  ii  pp.  460,  461. 

*  Clarke's  Evidences,  p.  420  sq.    Jortin's  Remarks  on  Ecclesiastical  History, 
voL  i.  pp.  138-152. 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  MAESH.  17 

and  in  their  general  cast  of  thought  they  undoubtedly  had 
more  affinity  with  the  Spencerian  than  the  Cocceian  school 
Yet  a  feeling  of  the  close  and  pervading  connection  between 
the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  dispensations  restrained 
them  from  discarding  the  more  important  of  the  inferred 
types.  Jortin  especially  falls  so  much  into  the  vein  of  ear- 
lier writers,  that  he  employs  his  ingenuity  in  reckoning  up 
as  many  as  forty  particulars  in  which  Moses  typically  pre- 
figured Christ.  A  work  composed  about  the  same  period  as 
that  to  which  the  Remarks  of  Jortin  belong,  and  one  that 
has  had  more  influence  than  any  other  in  fashioning  the 
typological  views  generally  entertained  in  Scotland  —  the 
production  of  a  young  Dissenting  minister  in  Dundee  (Mr. 
M'Ewen)1  —  is  still  more  free  in  the  admission  of  types  not 
expressly  sanctioned  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament. 
The  work  itself  being  posthumous,  and  intended  for  popular 
use,  contains  no  investigation  of  the  grounds  on  which  typi- 
cal ihterpr  stations  rest,  and  harmonizes  much  more  with  the 
school  that  had  flourished  in  the  previous  century,  than  that 
to  which  Clarke  and  Jortin  belonged.  As  indicative  of  a 
particular  style  of  biblical  interpretation,  it  may  be  classed 
with  the  productions  of  Mather  and  Taylor,  and  partakes 
alike  of  their  excellences  and  defects. 

There  was,  therefore,  a  considerable  unwillingness  in  this 
country  to  abandon  the  Cocceian  ground  on  the  subject  of 
types.  The  declension  came  in  gradually,  and  its  progress 
was  rather  marked  by  a  tacit  rejection  in  practice  of  much 
that  was  previously  held  to  be  typical,  than  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  views  specifically  different.  It  became  customary 
with  theologians  to  look  more  into  the  general  nature  of 
things  for  the  reasons  of  Christianity,  than  into  the  pre- 
existing elements  and  characteristics  of  former  dispensa- 
tions; and  to  account  for  the  peculiarities  of  Judaism  by  its 
partly  antagonistic,  partly  homogeneous  relation  to  Pagan- 
ism, rather  than  by  any  covert  reference  it  might  have  to 
he  coming  realities  of  the  Gospel.  As  an  inevitable  conse- 
uence,  the  typological  department  of  theology  fell  into 
general  neglect,  from  whicn  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
themselves  did  not  altogether  escape.  Those  portions  of 
them  especially  which  narrate  the  history  and  prescribe  the 
religious  rites  of  the  ancient  Church,  were  but  rarely  treated 
in  a  manner  that  bespoke  any  confidence  in  their  fitness  to 
minister  to  the  spiritual  discernment  and  faith  of  Christians. 

1  Grace  and  Truth;  or  the  Glory  and  Fulness  of  the  Redeemer  Displayed,  in 
an  attempt  to  explain  the  Types,  Figures,  and  Allegories  of  the  Old  Testament. 
By  the  Rev.  W.  M'Ewen. 


VOL.  I.  — 


18  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKIPTTTKE. 

It  seems,  partly,  at  least,  to  have  been  owing  to  this  grow- 
ing distaste  for  Old  Testament  inquiries,  and  this  general  de- 
preciation of  its  Scriptures,  that  what  is  called  the  Hutchin- 
sonian  school  arose  in  England,  which,  by  a  sort  of  recoil 
from  the  prevailing  spirit,  ran  into  the  opposite  extreme  of 
searching  for  the  elements  of  all  knowledge,  human  and  di- 
vine, in  the  writings  of  the  Old  Testament.  1  his  school  pos- 
sesses too  much  the  character  of  an  episode  in  the  history  of 
biblical  interpretation  in  this  countiy,  and  was  itself  too 
strongly  marked  by  a  spirit  of  extravagance,  to  render  any 
formal  account  of  it  necessary  here.  It  was,  besides,  chiefly 
of  a  physico-theological  character,  combining  the  elements 
of  a  natural  philosophy  with  the  truths  of  revelation,  both  of 
which  it  sought  to  extract  from  the  statements,  and  some- 
times even  from  the  words  and  letters  of  Scripture.  The 
most  profound  meanings  were  consequently  discovered  in 
the  sacred  text,  in  respect  alike  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Gos- 
pel and  the  truths  of  science.  One  of  the  maxims  of  its 
founder  was,  that  "every  passage  of  the  Old  Testament 
looks  backward  and  forward,  and  every  way,  like  light  from 
the  sun ;  not  only  to  the  state  before  and  under  the  Law,  but 
under  the  Gospel,  and  nothing  is  hid  from  the  light  there- 
of." 1  When  such  a  depth  and  complexity  of  meaning  was 
supposed  to  be  involved  in  every  passage,  we  need  not  be 
surprised  to  learn,  respecting  the  exactness  of  Abraham's 
knowledge  of  future  events,  that  he  knew  from  preceding 
types  and  promises,  not  only  that  "  one  of  his  own  line  was 
to  be  sacrificed,  to  be  a  blessing  to  all  the  race  of  Adam,"  but 
that  when  he  received  the  command  to  offer  Isaac,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  obey  it,  "not  doubting  that  Isaac  was  to  be  that 
person  who  should  redeem  man. '  * 

The  cabalistic  and  extravagant  character  of  the  Hutchin- 
sonian  system,  if  it  had  any  definite  influence  on  the  study  of 
types  and  other  cognate  subjects,  could  only  tend  to  increase 
the  suspicion  with  which  they  were  already  viewed,  and  foster 
a  disposition  to  agree  to  whatever  might  keep  investigation 
within  the  bounds  of  sobriety  and  discretion.  Accordingly, 
while  nothing  more  was  done  to  unfold  the  essential  and 
proper  ground  of  a  typical  connection  between  Old  and  New 
Testament  things,  and  to  prevent  abuse  by  tracing  the  matter 
up  to  its  ultimate  and  fundamental  principles,  the  more  scien- 
tific students  of  the  Bible  came,  by  a  sort  of  common  consent^ 
to  acquiesce  in  the  opinion,  that  those  only  were  to  be  reck 
oned  types  to  which  Scripture  itself,  by  express  warrant,  or 

1  Hutchlnaon's  Works,  voL  L  p.  202.  « Ibid.  roL  vii.  p.  326. 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  MAESH.  19 

at  least  by  obvious  implication,  had  assigned  that  character. 
Bishop  Marsh  may  be  named  as  perhaps  the  ablest  and  most 
systematic  expounder  of  this  view  of  the  subject.  He  says, 
"  There  is  no  other  rule  by  which  we  can  distinguish  a  real 
from  a  pretended  type,  than  that  of  Scripture  itself.  There 
are  no  other  possible  means  by  which  we  can  know  that  a  pre- 
vious design  and  a  pre-ordained  connection  existed.  What- 
ever persons  or  things,  therefore,  recorded  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, were  expressly  declared  by  Christ  or  by  His  apostles 
to  have  been  designed  as  prefigurations  of  persons  or  things 
relating  to  the  New  Testament,  such  persons  or  things  so  re- 
corded in  the  former,  are  types  of  the  persons  or  things  with 
which  they  are  compared  in  the  latter.  But  if  we  assert  that 
a  person  or  thing  was  designed  to  prefigure  another  person 
or  thing,  where  no  such  prefiguration  has  been  declared  by 
divine  authority,  we  make  an  assertion  for  which  we  neither 
have,  nor  can  have,  the  slightest  foundation."1  This  was  cer- 
tainly a  most  explicit  and  peremptory  decision  on  the  matter. 
But  the  principle  involved  in  the  decision,  though  seldom  so 
oracularly  announced,  has  long  been  practically  received.  It 
was  substantially  adopted  by  Macknight,  in  his  Dissertation 
on  the  Interpretation  of  Scripture,  at  the  end  of  his  Commentary 
on  the  Epistles,  before  Bishop  Marsh  wrote ;  and  it  has  been 
followed  since  by  Vanmildert  and  Conybeare  in  their  Bampton 
Lectures,  by  Nares  in  his  Warburtonian  Lectures,  by  Chevalier 
in  his  Hulsean  Lectures,  by  Home  in  his  Introduction,  and  a 
host  of  other  writers. 

Judging  from  an  article  in  the  American  Biblical  Repository, 
which  appeared  in  the  number  for  January,  1841,  it  would 
appear  that  the  leading  authorities  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic  concurred  in  the  same  general  review.  The  reviewer 
himself  advocates  the  opinion,  that  "  no  person,  event,  or  insti- 
tution, should  be  regarded  as  typical,  but  what  may  be  proved 
to  be  such  from  the  Scriptures,"  meaning  by  that  their  explicit 
assertion  in  regard  to  the  particular  case.  And  in  support  of 
this  opinion  he  quotes,  besides  English  writers,  the  words  of 
two  of  his  own  countrymen,  Professor  Stowe  and  Moses  Stu- 
art, the  latter  of  whom  says,  "  That  just  so  much  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  to  be  accounted  typical  as  the  New  Testament 
affirms  to  be  so,  and  no  more.  The  fact  that  any  thing  or 
event  under  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  was  designed  to 
prefigure  something  under  the  New,  can  be  known  to  us  only 
by  revelation;  and  of  course  all  that  is  not  designated  by 
divine  authority  as  typical,  can  never  be  made  so  by  any 

i  Lectures,  p.  373. 


20  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

authority  less  than  that  which  guided  the  writers  of  the  Ne\f 
Testament"1 

Now,  the  view  embraced  by  this  school  of  interpretation 
lies  open  to  one  objection,  in  common  with  the  school  that 
preceded  it.  While  the  field,  as  to  its  extent,  was  greatly 
circumscribed,  and  in  its  boundaries  ruled  as  with  square 
and  compass,  nothing  was  done  in  the  way  of  investigating 
it  internally,  or  of  unfolding  the  grounds  of  connection  be- 
tween type  and  antitype.  Fewer  points  of  resemblance  are 
usually  presented  to  us  between  the  one  and  the  other  by  the 
writers  of  this  school  than  are  found  in  works  of  an  older 
date;  but  the  resemblances  themselves  are  quite  as  much  of 
a  superficial  and  outward  kind.  The  real  harmony  and  con- 
nection between  the  Old  and  New  in  the  divine  dispensations, 
stood  precisely  where  it  was.  But  other  defects  adhere  to  this 
more  recent  typological  system.  The  leading  excellence  of 
the  system  that  preceded  it  was  the  constant  reference  it  con- 
ceived the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  to  bear  toward 
Christ  and  the  Gospel  dispensation;  and  the  practical  disa- 
vowal of  this  may  be  said  to  constitute  the  great  defect  of 
the  more  exact,  but  balder  system,  which  supplanted  it  with 
the  general  concurrence  of  the  learned.  It  drops  a  golden 
principle  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  a  few  lawless  aberrations. 
With  such  narrow  limits  as  it  sets  to  our  inquiries,  we  can 
not  indeed  wander  far  into  the  regions  of  extravagance.  But 
in  the  very  prescription  of  these  limits,  it  wrongfully  with- 
holds from  us  the  key  of  knowledge,  and  shuts  us  up  to 
errors  scarcely  less  to  be  deprecated  than  those  it  seeks  to 
correct.  For  it  destroys  to  a  large  extent  the  bond  of  con- 
nection between  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  Scriptures, 
and  thus  deprives  the  Christian  Church  of  much  of  the  in- 
struction in  divine  things  which  they  were  designed  to  im- 
part. Were  men  accustomed,  as  they  should  be,  to  search 
for  the  germs  of  Christian  truth  in  the  earliest  Scriptures, 
and  to  regard  the  inspired  records  of  both  covenants  as  hav- 
ing for  their  leading  object  "  the  testimony  of  Jesus,"  they 
would  know  how  much  they  were  losers  by  such  an  undue 
contraction  of  the  typical  element  in  Old  Testament  Script- 
ure. And  in  proportion  as  a  more  profound  and  spiritual  ac- 
quaintance with  the  divine  word  is  cultivated,  will  the  feeling 
of  dissatisfaction  grow  in  respect  to  a  style  of  interpretation 
that  so  miserably  dwarfs  and  cripples  the  relation  which  the 
preparatory  bears  to  the  ultimate  in  God's  revelations. 

it  is  necessary,  however,  to  take  a  closer  view  of  the  sut> 

i  Stuart's  Erntsii,  p.  13. 


THE  SCHOOL  OP  MABSH.  21 

iect.  The  principle  on  which  this  typological  system  takes 
its  stand,  is,  that  nothing  less  than  inspired  authority  is  suf- 
ficient to  determine  the  reality  and  import  of  any  thing  that 
is  typical  But  what  necessary  reason  or  solid  ground  is 
there  for  such  a  principle  ?  No  one  holds  the  necessity  of 
inspiration  to  explain  each  particular  prophecy,  and  decide 
even  with  certainty  on  its  fulfilment;  and  why  should  it  be 
reckoned  indispensable  in  the  closely  related  subject  of  types? 
This  question  was  long  ago  asked  by  Witsius,  and  yet  waits 
for  a  satisfactory  answer.  A  part  only,  it  is  universally  al- 
lowed, of  the  prophecies  which  refer  to  Christ  and  His  King- 
dom have  been  specially  noticed  and  interpreted  by  the  rjen 
of  inspiration.  So  little  necessary,  indeed,  was  inspiration 
for  such  a  purpose,  that  even  before  the  descent  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  at  Pentecost,  our  Lord  reproved  His  disciples  as  "fools 
and  slow  of  heart  to  believe  att  that  the  prophets  had  spoken."1 
And  from  the  clos->  analogy  between  the  two  subjects — for 
what  is  a  type  but  a  prophetical  act  or  institution? — we  might 
reasonably  infer  the  same  liberty  to  have  been  granted,  and 
the  same  obligation  to  be  imposed,  in  regard  to  the  typical 
parts  of  ancient  Scripture.  But  we  have  something  more 
than  a  mere  argument  from  analogy  to  guide  us  to  this  con- 
clusion. For  the  very  same  complaint  is  brought  by  an  in- 
spired writer  against  private  Christians  concerning  their  slow- 
ness in  understanding  the  typical,  which  our  Lord  brought 
against  His  disciples  in  respect  to  the  prophetical  portions  of 
ancient  Scripture.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  a  sharp  re- 
proof is  administered  for  the  imperfect  acquaintance  believers 
among  them  had  with  the  typical  character  of  Melchizedek, 
and  subjects  of  a  like  nature — thus  placing  it  beyond  a  doubt 
that  it  is  both  the  duty  and  the  privilege  of  the  Church,  with 
that  measure  of  the  Spirit's  grace  which  it  is  the  part  even 
of  jyrivate  Christians  to  possess,  to  search  into  the  types  of 
ancient  Scripture,  and  come  to  a  correct  understanding  of 
them.1  To  deny  this,  is  plainly  to  withhold  an  important 
privilege  from  the  Church  of  Christ;  to  dissuade  from  it,  is 
to  encourage  the  neglect  of  an  incumbent  duty. 

But  the  unsoundness  of  the  principle,  which  would  thus 
limit  the  number  of  types  to  those  which  New  Testament 
Scripture  has  expressly  noticed  and  explained,  becomes  still 
more  apparent  when  it  is  considered  what  these  really  are, 
and  in  what  manner  they  are  introduced.  Leaving  out  of 
view  the  tabernacle,  with  its  furniture  and  services,  which, 
as  a  whole,  is  affirmed  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Hebrews  and  the 

>  Luke  TOY.  25.  «  Heb.  T.  11-14. 


22  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Colossians  to  have  been  of  a  typical  nature,  the  following  ex- 
amples are  what  the  writers  now  referred  to  usually  regard 
as  having  more  or  less  of  a  direct  sanction  in  Scripture: — 

1.  Persons  or  characters:  Adam  (Rom.  v.  11,  12;  1  Cor.  xv. 
22);   Melchizedek  (Heb.  vii.);   Sarah  and  Hagar,  Ishmael 
and  Isaac,  and  by  implication  Abraham  (Gal.  iv.  22-35); 
Moses  (Gal.  iii.  19;  Acts  iii.  22-26);  Jonah  (Matt.  xii.  40); 
David  (Ezek.  xxxvii.  24;  Luke  i.  32,  etc.);  Solomon  (2  Sam, 
vii.);  Zerubbabel  and  Joshua  (Zech.  iii.  iv. ;   Hag.  ii.   23). 

2.  Transactions  or  events :  the  preservation  of  Noah  and  his 
family  in  the  ark  (1  Pet.  iii.  20) :  the  redemption  from  Egypt 
and  its  passover-memorial  (Luke  xxii.  15,  16;  1  Cor.  v.  7); 
the  exodus  (Matt.  ii.  15) ;  the  passage  through  the  Red  Sea, 
the  giving  of  manna,  Mx»ses'  veiling  of  his  face  while  the  law 
was  read;  the  water  flowing  from  the  smitten  rock;  the  ser- 
pent lifted  up  for  healing  in  the  wilderness,  and  some  other 
things  that  befell  the  Israelites  there  (1  Cor.  x. ;  John  iii.  14 ; 
v.  33;  Rev.  ii.  18).1 

Now,  let  any  person  of  candor  and  intelligence  take  his 
Bible,  and  examine  the  passages  to  which  reference  is  here 
made,  and  then  say  whether  the  manner  in  which  these  typi- 
cal characters  and  transactions  are  there  introduced,  is  sucn  as 
to  indicate  that  these  alone  were  held  by  the  inspired  writers 
to  be  prefigurative  of  similar  characters  and  transactions 
under  the  Gospel  ?  that  in  naming  them  they  meant  to  ex- 
haust the  typical  bearing  of  Old  Testament  history?  On  the 
contrary,  we  deem  it  impossible  for  any  one  to  avoid  the  con- 
viction, that  in  whatever  respect  these  particular  examples 
may  have  been  adduced,  it  is  simply  as  examples  adapted  to 
the  occasion,  and  taken  from  a  vast  storehouse,  where  many 
more  were  to  be  found.  They  have  so  much  at  least  the  ap- 
pearance of  having  been  selected  merely  on  account  of  their 
suitableness  to  the  immediate  end  in  view,  that  they  can  not 
fairly  be  regarded  otherwise  than  as  specimens  of  the  class 

1  We  don't  vouch,  of  course,  for  the  absolute  completeness  of  the  above  list. 
Indeed  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  know  what  would  be  regarded  as  a  com- 
plete list — some  feeling  satisfied  with  an  amount  of  recognition  in  Scripture 
which  seems  quite  insufficient  in  the  eyes  of  others.  There  have  been  those 
who,  on  the  strength  of  Gen.  xlix.  24,  would  insert  Joseph  among  the  spe- 
cially mentioned  types,  and  claim  also  Samson,  on  account  of  what  is  written 
in  Judg.  xiii.  5.  But  scriptural  warrants  of  such  a  kind  are  out  of  date  now 
— they  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  current  coin.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
are  not  a  few  who  deem  the  scriptural  warrant  insufficient  for  some  of  those 
we  have  specified,  and  think  the  passages  where  they  are  noticed  refer  to  them 
merely  in  the  way  of  illustration.  The  list,  however,  comprises  what  are  usu- 
ally regarded  as  historical  types,  possessing  distinct  scriptural  authority,  by 
writers  belonging  to  the  school  of  Marsh.  The  arguments  of  those  who  would 
discard  them  altogether  will  be  considered  under  next  division. 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  MAESH.  23 

they  belong  to.  And  if  so,  they  should  rather  have  the  effect 
of  prompting  further  inquiry  than  of  repressing  it ;  since,  in- 
stead of  themselves  comprehending  and  bounding  the  whole 
field  of  Scriptural  Typology,  they  only  exhibit  practically  the 
principles  on  which  others  of  a  Hke  description  are  to  be  dis- 
covered and  explained. 

Indeed,  were  it  otherwise,  nothing  could  be  more  arbitrary 
and  inexplicable  than  this  Scriptural  Typology.  For,  whal 
is  there  to  distinguish  the  characters  and  events,  which  Script- 
ure has  thus  particularized,  from  a  multitude  of  others,  to 
which  the  typical  element  might  equally  have  been  supposed 
to  belong  ?  Is  there  any  thing  on  the  face  of  the  inspired  rec- 
ord to  make  us  look  on  them  in  a  singular  light,  and  attribute 
to  them  a  significance  altogether  peculiar  respecting  the  fu- 
ture affairs  of  God's  kingdom  ?  So  far  from  it,  that  we  in- 
stinctively feel,  if  these  really  possessed  a  typical  character,  so 
also  must  others,  which  hold  an  equally,  or  perhaps  even  more 
prominent  place  in  the  history  of  God's  dispensations.  Can 
it  be  seriously  believed,  for  example,  that  Sarah  and  Hagar 
stood  in  a  typical  relation  to  gospel  times,  while  no  such  place 
was  occupied  by  Rebekah,  as  the  spouse  of  Isaac,  and  the 
mother  of  Jacob  and  Esau  ?  What  reason  can  we  imagine 
for  Melchizedek  and  Jonah  having  been  constituted  types — 
persons  to  whom  our  attention  is  comparatively  little  drawn 
in  Old  Testament  history — while  such  leading  characters  as 
Joseph,  Samson,  Joshua,  are  omitted?  Or,  for  selecting  the 
passage  through  the  Red  Sea,  and  the  incidents  in  the  wil- 
derness, while  no  account  should  be  made  of  the  passage 
through  Jordan,  and  the  conquest  of  the  land  of  Canaan? 

We  can  scarcely  conceive  of  a  mode  of  interpretation  which 
should  deal  more  capriciously  with  the  word  of  God,  and  make 
so  anomalous  a  use  of  its  historical  records.  Instead  of  invest- 
ing these  with  a  homogeneous  character,  it  arbitrarily  selects 
a  few  out  of  the  general  mass,  and  sets  them  up  in  solitary 
grandeur,  like  mystic  symbols  in  a  temple,  fictitiously  elevated 
above  the  sacred  materials  around  them.  The  exploded  prin- 
ciple, which  sought  a  type  in  every  notice  of  Old  Testament 
history,  had  at  least  the  merit  of  uniformity  to  recommend  it, 
and  could  not  be  said  to  deal  partially,  however  often  it  might 
deal  fancifully,  with  the  facts  of  ancient  Scripture.  But  ac- 
cording to  the  plan  now  under  review,  for  which  the  authority 
of  inspiration  itself  is  claimed,  we  perceive  nothing  but  arbi- 
trary distinctions  and  groundless  preferences.  And  though 
unquestionably  it  were  wrong  to  expect  in  the  word  of  God 
the  methodical  precision  and  order  which  might  naturally 
have  been  looked  for  in  a  merely  human  composition,  yet  as 


24  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCULPTURE. 

the  product,  amid  all  its  variety,  of  one  and  the  same  Spirit, 
we  are  warranted  to  expect  tnat  there  shall  be  a  consistent 
agreement  among  its  several  parts,  and  that  distinctions  shall 
not  be  created  in  the  one  Testament,  which  in  the  other  seem 
destitute  of  any  just  foundation  or  apparent  reason. 

But  then,  if  a  greater  latitude  is  allowed,  how  shall  we 
guard  against  error  and  extravagance?  Without  the  express 
authority  of  Scripture,  how  shall  we  be  able  to  distinguish 
between  a  happy  illustration  and  a  real  type  ?  In  the  words 
of  Bishop  Marsh:  "By  what  means  shall  we  determine,  in  any 
given  instance,  that  what  is  alleged  as  a  type  was  really  de- 
signed for  a  type  ?  The  only  possible  source  of  information  on 
this  subject  is  Scripture  itself.  The  only  possible  means  of 
knowing  that  two  distant,  though  similar  historical  facts,  were 
so  connected  in  the  general  scheme  of  Divine  Providence  that 
the  one  was  designed  to  prefigure  the  other,  is  the  authority 
of  that  book  in  which  the  scheme  of  Divine  Providence  is 
unfolded."1  This  is  an  objection,  indeed,  which  strikes  at  the 
root  of  the  whole  matter,  and  its  validity  can  only  be  ascer- 
tained by  a  thorough  investigation  into  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  the  subject.  That  Scripture  is  the  sole  rule,  on  the 
authority  of  which  we  are  to  distinguish  what  is  properly 
typical  from  what  is  not,  we  readily  grant — thougn  not  in 
the  straitened  sense  contended  for  by  Bishop  Marsh  and  those 
who  hold  similar  views,  as  if  there  were  no  way  for  Scripture 
to  furnish  a  sufficient  direction  on  the  subject,  except  by  spe- 
cifying every  particular  case.  It  is  possible,  surely,  that  in 
this,  as  well  as  in  other  things,  Scripture  may  indicate  certain 
fundamental  views  or  principles,  of  which  it  makes  but  a  few 
individual  applications,  and  for  the  rest  leaves  them  in  the 
hand  of  spiritually  enlightened  consciences.  The  rather  may 
we  thus  conclude,  as  it  is  one  of  the  leading  peculiarities  of 
New  Testament  Scripture  to  develop  great  truths,  much  more 
than  to  dwell  on  minute  and  isolated  facts.  It  is  a  presump- 
tion against,  not  in  favor  of,  the  system  we  now  oppose,  that 
it  would  shut  up  the  Typology  of  Scripture,  in  so  far  as  cou- 
nected  with  the  characters  and  events  of  sacred  history,  within 
the  narrow  circle  of  a  few  scattered  and  apparently  random 
examples.  And  the  attempt  to  rescue  it  from  this  position,  if 
in  any  measure  successful,  will  also  serve  to  exhibit  the  unity 
of  design  which  pervades  the  inspired  records  of  both  cove- 
nants, the  traces  they  contain  of  the  same  divine  hand,  the  sub- 
servience of  the  one  to  the  other,  and  the  mutual  dependence 
alike  of  the  Old  upon  the  New,  and  of  the  New  upon  the  Old. 

>  Lectures,  p.  372. 


MOBE  REGENT  VIEWS.  25 

V.  We  have  still,  however,  another  stage  of  our  critical 
survey  before  us,  and  one  calling  in  some  respects  for  careful 
discrimination  and  inquiry.  The  style  of  interpretation  which 
we  have  connected  with  the  name  of  Marsh  could  not,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  afford  satisfaction  to  men  of  thoughtful 
minds,  who  must  have  something  like  equitable  principles  as 
well  as  external  authority  to  guide  them  in  their  interpreta- 
tions. Such  persons  could  not  avoid  feeling  that,  if  there  was 
so  much  in  the  Old  Testament  bearing  a  typical  relation  to  the 
New,  as  was  admitted  on  scriptural  authority  by  the  school  of 
Marsh,  there  must  be  considerably  more ;  and  also,  that  un- 
derneath that  authority  there  must  be  a  substratum  of  funda- 
mental principles  capable  of  bearing  what  Scripture  itself  has 
raised  on  it.  and  whatever  besides  may  fitly  be  conjoined  with  it. 
But  some,  again,  might  possibly  be  of  opinion  that  the  author- 
ity of  Scripture  can  not  warrantably  carry  us  so  far ;  and  that 
both  scriptural  authority,  and  the  fundamental  principles  in- 
volved in  the  nature  of  the  subject,  apply  only  in  part  to  what 
the  disciples  of  Marsh  regarded  as  typical.  Accordingly, 
among  more  recent  inquirers  we  have  examples  of  each  mode 
of  divergence  from  the  formal  rules  laid  down  by  the  preced- 
ing school  of  interpretation.  The  search  for  first  principles 
has  disposed  some  greatly  to  enlarge  the  typological  field, 
and  it  Has  disposed  others  not  less  to  curtail  it. 

1.  To  take  the  latter  class  first,  as  they  stand  most  nearly 
related  to  the  school  last  discoursed  of,  representatives  of  it 
are  certainly  not  wanting  on  the  Continent,  among  whom 
may  be  named  the  hermeneutical  writer  Klausen,  to  whom 
reference  will  presently  be  made  in  another  connection.  But 
it  is  the  less  needful  here  to  call  in  foreign  authorities,  as  the 
view  in  question  has  had  its  advocates  in  our  own  theological 
literature.  It  was  exhibited,  for  example,  in  Dr.  L.  Alexan- 
der's Connection  and  Harmony  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament 
(1841),  in  which,  while  coinciding  substantially  with  Bahr  in 
his  mode  of  explaining  and  applying  to  Gospel  times  the  sym- 
bolical institutions  of  the  Ola  Covenant,  he  yet  declared  him- 
self opposed  to  any  further  extension  of  the  typical  sphere. 
He  would  regard  nothing  as  entitled  to  the  name  of  typical 
which  did  not  possess  the  character  of  "a  divine  institution;" 
or,  as  he  formally  defines  the  entire  class,  "  they  are  symboli- 
cal institutes  expressly  appointed  by  God  to  prefigure  to 
those  among  whom  they  were  set  up  certain  great  transac- 
tions in  connection  with  that  plan  of  redemption  which,  in 
the  fulness  of  time,  was  to  be  unfolded  to  mankind."  Hence 
the  historical  types  of  every  description,  even  those  which 
the  school  of  Marsh  recognized  on  account  of  the  place  given 


26  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

to  them  in  New  Testament  Scripture,  were  altogether  disal- 
lowed; the  use  made  of  them  oy  the  inspired  writers  was 
held  to  be  "  for  illustration  merely,  and  not  for  the  purpose 
of  building  any  thing  on  them";  they  are  not  thereoy  con- 
stituted or  proved  to  oe  types. 

The  same  view,  however,  was  taken  up  and  received  a 
much  fuller  and  more  resolute  vindication  by  the  American 
writer  Mr.  Lord,  in  a  periodical  not  unknown  in  this  coun- 
try— the  Ecclesiastical  and  Literary  Journal  (No.  xv.).  This 
was  done  in  connection  with  a  fierce  and  elaborate  review  of 
the  first  edition  of  the  Typology,  in  the  course  of  which  ita 
system  of  exposition  was  denounced  as  "a  monstrous  scheme," 
not  only  "without  the  sanction  of  the  word  of  God,"  but  "one 
of  the  boldest  and  most  effective  contrivances  for  its  subver- 
sion." It  is  not  my  intention  now — less,  indeed,  when  issu- 
ing this  new  edition  (the  fourth)  than  formerly — to  attempt 
to  rebut  such  offensive  charges,  or  to  expose  the  misrepresen- 
tations on  which  to  a  large  extent  they  were  grounded.  I 
should  even  have  preferred,  had  it  been  in  my  power  to  do  so, 
repairing  to  some  vindication  of  the  same  view,  equally  stren- 
uous in  its  advocacy,  but  conducted  in  a  calmer  and  fairer 
tone,  in  order  that  the  discussion  might  bear  less  of  a  per- 
sonal aspect.  But  as  my  present  object  is  partly  to  unfold 
the  gradual  progress  and  development  of  opinion  upon  the 
subject  of  Scriptural  Typology,  justice  could  scarcely  be  done 
to  it  without  hearing  what  Mr.  Lord  has  to  say  for  the  section 
of  British  and  American  theologians  he  represents,  and  meet- 
ing it  with  a  brief  rejoinder. 

The  writer's  mode  was  a  comparatively  easy  one  for  prov- 
ing a  negative  to  the  view  he  controverted.  He  began  with 
setting  forth  a  description  of  the  nature  and  characteristics 
of  a  type,  so  tightened  and  compressed  as  to  exclude  all  from 
the  category  but  what  pertained  to  "  the  tabernacle  worship, 
or  the  propitiation  and  homage  of  God."  And  having  thus 
with  a  kind  of  oracular  precision  drawn  his  enclosure,  it  was 
not  difficult  to  dispose  of  whatever  else  might  claim  to  be  ad- 
mitted ;  for  it  is  put  to  flight  the  moment  he  presents  his  ex- 
act definitions,  arid  can  only  be  considered  typical  by  persons 
of  dreamy  intellect,  who  are  utter  strangers  to  clearness  of 
thought  and  precision  of  language.  In  this  way  it  is  possi- 
ble, we  admit,  and  also  not  very  difficult,  to  make  out  a 
scheme  and  establish  a  nomenclature  of  one's  own ;  but  the 
question  is,  Does  it  accord  with  the  representations  of  Script- 
ure ?  and  will  it  serve,  in  respect  to  these,  as  a  guiding  and 
harmonizing  principle  ?  We  might,  in  a  similar  way,  draw 
out  a  series  of  precise  and  definite  characteristics  of  Messianic 


MOKE  RECENT  VIEWS.  2? 

prophecy — such  as,  that  it  must  avowedly  bear  the  impress 
of  a  prediction  of  the  future — that  it  must  in  the  most  explicit 
terms  point  to  the  person  or  times  of  Messiah — that  it  must 
be  conveyed  in  language  capable  of  no  ambiguity  or  double 
reference;  and  then,  with  this  sharp  weapon  in  our  hand, 
proceed  summarily  to  lop  off  all  supposed  prophetical  pas- 
sages in  which  these  characteristics  are  wanting — holding 
such,  if  applied  to  Messianic  times,  to  be  mere  accommoda- 
tions, originally  intended  for  one  thing,  and  afterwards  loosely 
adapted  to  another.  The  rationalists  of  a  former  generation 
were  great  adepts  in  this  mode  of  handling  prophetical  Script- 
ure, and  by  the  use  of  it  readily  disposed  of  many  of  the  pas- 
sages which  in  the  New  Testament  are  represented  as  find- 
ing their  fulfilment  in  Christ  But  we  have  yet  to  learn,  that 
by  so  doing  they  succeeded  in  throwing  any  satisfactory  light 
on  the  interpretation  of  Scripture,  or  in  placing  on  a  solid 
basis  the  connection  between  the  Old  and  the  New  in  God's 
dispensations. 

How  closely  the  principles  of  Mr.  Lord  lead  him  to  tread 
in  the  footsteps  of  these  effete  interpreters,  will  appear  pres- 
ently. But  we  must  first  lodge  our  protest  against  his  ac- 
count of  the  essential  nature  and  characteristics  of  a  type, 
as  entirely  arbitrary  and  unsupported  by  Scripture.  The 
things  really  possessing  this  character,  he  maintains,  must 
have  had  the  three  following  distinctive  marks :  they  must 
have  been  specifically  constituted  types  by  God;  must  have 
been  known  to  be  so  constituted,  and  contemplated  as  such 
by  those  who  had  to  do  with  them;  and  must  have  been 
continued  till  the  coming  of  Christ,  when  they  were  abro- 
gated or  superseded  by  something  analogous  in  the  Christian 
dispensation.  These  are  his  essential  elements  in  the  consti- 
tution of  a  type;  and  an  assertion  of  the  want  of  one  or 
more  of  them  forms  the  perpetual  refrain,  with  which  he  dis- 
poses of  those  characters  and  transactions  that  in  his  esteem 
are  falsely  accounted  typical.  We  object  to  every  one  of 
them  in  the  sense  understood  by  the  writer,  and  deny  that 
scriptural  proof  can  be  produced  for  them,  as  applying  to  tho 
strictly  religious  symbols  of  the  Old  Testament  worship,  and 
to  them  alone.  These  were  not  specifically  constituted  types, 
or  formally  set  up  in  that  character,  no  more  than  such  trans- 
actions as  the  deliverance  from  Egypt,  or  the  preservation  of 
Noah  in  the  deluge,  which  are  denied  to  have  been  typical. 
In  the  manner  of  their  appointment,  viewed  by  itself,  there 
is  no  more  to  indicate  a  reference  to  the  Messianic  future  in 
the  one  than  in  the  other.  Neither  were  they  for  certain 
known  to  be  types,  and  used  as  such  by  the  Old  Testament 


28  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

worshippers.  They  unquestionably  were  not  so  used  in  the 
time  of  our  Lord;  and  how  far  they  may  have  been  so  at 
any  previous  period,  is  a  matter  only  of  probable  inference, 
but  nowhere  of  express  revelation.  Nor,  finally,  was  it  by 
any  means  an  invariable  and  indispensable  characteristic, 
that  they  should  have  continued  in  use  till  they  were  super- 
seded by  something  analogous  in  the  Christian  dispensation. 
Some  of  the  anointings  were  not  so  continued,  nor  the  Shek- 
inah,  nor  even  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant;  and  some  of  them 
stood  in  occasional  acts  of  service,  such  as  the  Nazarite  vow, 
in  its  very  nature  special  and  temporary.  The  redemption 
from  Egypt  was  in  itself  a  single  event,  yet  it  was  closely 
allied  to  the  symbolical  services ;  for  it  was  linked  to  an  ever- 
recurring  and  permanent  ordinance  of  worship.  It  was  a 
creative  act,  bringing  Israel  as  a  people  of  God  into  formal 
existence,  and  as  such  capable  only  of  being  commemorated, 
but  not  of  being  repeated.  It  was  commemorated,  however, 
in  the  passover  feast.  In  that  feast  the  Israelites  continually 
freshened  the  remembrance  of  it  anew  on  their  hearts.  They 
in  spirit  re-enacted  it  as  a  thing  that  required  to  be  constantly 
renewing  itself  in  their  experience,  as  in  the  Lord's  Supper 
is  now  done  by  Christians  in  regard  to  the  one  great  redemp- 
tion act  on  the  cross.  This,  too,  considered  simply  as  an  act 
in  God's  administration,  is  incapable  of  being  repeated ;  it  can 
only  be  commemorated,  and  in  its  effects  spiritually  applied 
to  the  conscience.  Yet  so  far  from  being  thereby  bereft  of 
an  antitypical  character,  it  is  the  central  antitype  of  the  Gos- 
pel. Why  should  it  be  otherwise  in  respect  to  the  type  ?  The 
analogy  of  things  favors  it,  and  the  testimony  of  Scripture  not 
doubtfully  requires  it. 

To  say  nothing  of  other  passages  of  Scripture  which  bear 
less  explicitly,  though  to  our  mind  very  materially,  upon  the 
subject,  our  Lord  Himself,  at  the  celebration  of  the  last  pass- 
over,  declared  to  His  disciples,  "  With  desire  I  have  desired 
to  eat  this  passover  with  you  before  I  suffer ;  for  I  say^  unto 
you,  I  will  not  any  more  eat  thereof,  until  it  be  fulfilled  in  the 
kingdom  of  God.  *  That  is,  there  is  a  prophecy  as  well  as  a 
memorial  in  this  commemorative  ordinance — a  prophecy,  be- 
cause it  is  the  rehearsal  of  a  typical  transaction,  which  is 
now,  and  only  now,  going  to  meet  with  its  full  realization. 
Such  appears  to  be  the  plain  and  unsophisticated  import  of 
our  Lord's  words.  And  the  Apostle  Paul  is,  if  possible,  still 
more  explicit  when  he  says,  "For  even  Christ  our  passover 
is  sacrificed  for  us  (more  exactly,  *  For  also  our  passover  haa 

i  Luke  TTJJ-  15,  16. 


MOBE   RECENT  VIEWS.  29 

been  sacrificed,  Christ'):  therefore  let  us  keep  the  feast,"  etc.1 
What,  we  again  ask,  are  we  to  understand  by  these  words,  if 
not  that  there  is  in  the  design  and  appointment  of  God  aD 
ordained  connection  between  the  death  of  Christ  and  the  sac- 
rifice of  the  passover,  so  that  the  one,  as  the  means  of  re- 
demption, takes  the  place  of  the  other  ?  In  any  other  sense 
the  language  would  be  only  fitted  to  mislead,  by  begetting 
apprehensions  regarding  a  mutual  correspondence  and  con- 
nection which  had  no  existence.  It  is  alleged  on  the  other 
side,  that  "  Christ  is  indeed  said  to  be  our  passover,  but  it  is 
by  a  metaphor,  and  indicates  only  that  it  is  by  His  blood  we 
are  saved  from  everlasting  death,  as  the  first-born  of  the  He- 
brews were  saved  by  the  blood  of  the  paschal  lamb  from 
death  by  the  destroying  angel."  Were  this  all,  the  apostle 
might  surely  have  expressed  himself  less  ambiguously.  If 
there  was  no  real  connection  between  the  earlier  and  the 
later  event,  and  the  one  stood  as  much  apart  from  the  other 
as  the  lintels  of  Goshen  in  themselves  did  from  the  cross  of 
Calvary,  why  employ  language  that  forces  upon  the  minds  of 
simple  believers  the  reality  of  a  proper  connection  ?  Simply, 
we  believe,  because  it  actually  existed ;  and  our  "  exegetical 
conscience,"  to  use  a  German  phrase,  refuses  to  be  satisfied 
with  our  reviewer's  mere  metapnor.  But  when  he  states  fur- 
ther, that  the  passover,  having  been  "  appointed  with  a  refer- 
ence to  the  exemption  of  the  first-born  of  the  Israelites  from 
the  death  that  was  to  be  inflicted  on  the  first-born  of  the 
Egyptians,  it  can  not  be  a  tvpe  of  Christ's  death  for  the  sins 
of  the  world,  as  that  would  imply  that  Christ's  death  also  was 
commemorative  of  the  preservation  from  an  analogous  death," 
who  does  not  perceive  that  this  is  to  confound  between  the 
passover  as  an  original  redemptive  transaction,  and  as  a  com- 
memorative ordinance,  pointing  back  to  the  great  fact,  and 
perpetually  rehearsing  it?  It  is  as  &  festal  solemnity  alone 
that  there  can  be  any  thing  commemorative  belonging  either 
to  the  paschal  sacrifice  or  to  Christ's.  Viewed,  however,  as 
redemptive  acts,  there  was  a  sufficient  analogy  between  them : 
the  one  redeemed  the  first-born  of  Israel  (the  firstlings  of  its 
families),  and  the  other  redeems  "the  Cnurch  of  the  first- 
born, wnose  names  are  written  in  heaven." 

There  is  manifested  a  like  tendency  to  evacuate  the  proper 
meaning  of  Scripture  in  most  of  the  other  instances  brought 
into  consideration.  Christ,  for  example,  calls  Himself,  with 
pointed  reference  to  the  manna,  "  the  bread  of  life " ;  and  in 
Rev.  ii.  17  an  interest  in  His  divine  life  is  called  "  an  eating 

1 1  Cor.  v.  7,  a 


80  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCREPTUBK 

of  the  hidden  manna,"  but  it  is  only  "by  a  metaphor,"  pre- 
cisely as  Christ  elsewhere  calls  Himself  the  vine,  or  is  likened 
to  a  rock.  As  if  there  were  no  difference  between  an  employ- 
ment of  these  natural  emblems  and  the  identifying  of  Christ 
with  the  supernatural  food  given  to  support  His  people,  after 
a  provisional  redemption,  and  on  the  way  to  a  provisional  in- 
heritance !  It  is  not  the  simple  reference  to  a  temporal  good 
on  which,  in  such  a  case,  we  rest  the  typical  import,  but  this 
in  connection  with  the  whole  of  the  relations  and  circum- 
stances in  which  the  temporal  was  given  or  employed.  Jo- 
nah was  not,  it  is  alleged,  a  type  of  Christ ;  for  he  is  not  called 
such,  but  only  a  "sign":  neither  was  Melchizedek  called  by 
that  name.  Well,  but  Adam  is  called  a  type  (rvnst  rov  //«'A- 
/loxros,  Kom.  v.  14),  and  baptism  is  called  trie  antitype  to  the 
deluge  (o  uoii  T^waS  dvTirvitov  vvv  doo^si  fta.Tfci6^ay  1  Pet.  iii.  21). 
True,  but  then,  we  are  told,  the  word  in  these  passages  only 
means  a  similitude ;  it  does  not  mean  type  or  antitype  in  the 
proper  sense.  What,  then,  could  denote  it?  Is  there  any 
other  term  more  properly  fitted  to  express  the  idea?  And  if 
the  precise  term,  when  it  is  employed,  still  does  not  serve, 
why  object  in  other  cases  to  the  want  of  it  ?  Strange,  surely, 
that  its  presence  and  its  absence  should  be  alike  grounds  of 
objection.  But  if  the  matter  is  to  come  to  a  mere  stickling 
about  words,  shall  we  have  any  types  at  all  ?  Are  even  the 
tabernacle  and  its  institutions  of  worship  called  by  that  name  ? 
Not  once ;  but  inversely,  the  designation  of  antitypes  is  in  one 
passage  applied  to  them :  "  The  holy  places  made  with  hands, 
the  antitypes  of  the  true  "  (avriTvita.  r£v  dtyQivGov,  Heb.  ix.  24). 
So  little  does  Scripture,  in  its  teachings  on  this  subject,  en- 
courage us  to  hang  our  theoretical  explanations  on  a  particular 
epithet !  It  varies  the  mode  of  expression  with  all  the  free- 
dom of  common  discourse,  and  even,  as  in  this  particular  in- 
stance, inverts  the  current  phraseology ;  but  still,  amid  all  the 
variety,  it  indicates  with  sufficient  plainness  a  real  economical 
connection  between  the  past  and  the  present  in  God's  dispen- 
sations,— such  as  is  commonly  understood  by  the  terms  type 
and  antitype.  And  this  is  the  great  point,  however  we  may 
choose  to  express  it. 

The  passage  in  Galatians  respecting  Sarah  and  Isaac  on 
the  one  side,  and  Hagar  and  Ishmael  on  the  other,  naturally 
formed  one  of  some  importance  for  the  view  sought  to  be  es- 
tablished in  the  Typology,  and  as  such  called  for  Mr.  Lord's 
special  consideration.  Here,  as  in  other  cases,  he  begins  with 
the  statement  that  the  characters  and  relations  there  men- 
tioned have  not  the  term  type  applied  to  them,  and  hence 
should  not  be  reckoned  typical.  "It  is  only  said.,"  he  contin- 


MOEE  BECENT  VIEWS.  31 

ues,  "that  that  which  is  related  of  Hagar  and  Sarah  is  exhib- 
ited allegorically ;  that  is,  that  there  are  other  things  that, 
used  as  allegorical  representatives  of  Hagar  and  Sarah  exhibit 
the  same  facts  and  truths.  The  object  of  the  allegory  is  to 
exemplify  them  by  analogous  things ;  not  by  them  to  exemplify 
something  else,  to  which  they  present  a  resemblance.  It  is 
they  who  are  said  to  be  allegorized,  that  is,  represented  by 
something  else;  not  something  else  that  is  allegorized  by 
them.  They  are  accordingly  said  to  be  the  two  covenants, 
that  is,  like  the  two  covenants;  and  Mount  Sinai  is  used  to 
represent  the  covenant  that  genders  to  bondage ;  and  Jerusa- 
lem from  above — that  is,  the  Jerusalem  of  Christ's  kingdom — 
the  covenant  of  freedom  or  grace.  And  they  accordingly  are 
employed  [by  the  apostle]  to  set  forth  the  character  and  con- 
dition of  the  bond  and  the  free  woman,  and  their  offspring. 
He  attempts  to  illustrate  the  lot  of  the  two  classes  who  a"re 
under  law  and  under  grace :  first,  by  referring  to  the  different 
relations  to  the  covenant,  and  different  lot  of  the  children  of 
the  bond  and  the  free  woman;  and  then,  by  using  Mount 
Sinai  to  exemplify  the  character  and  condition  of  those  under 
the  Mosaic  law,  and  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  to  exemplify 
those  who  are  under  the  Gospel.  The  places  from  which  the 
two  covenants  are  proclaimed  are  thus  used  to  represent  those 
two  classes;  not  Hagar  and  Sarah  to  represent  those  places, 
or  the  covenants  that  are  proclaimed  from  them."  Now,  this 
show  of  exact  criticism — professing  to  explain  all,  and  yet 
leaving  the  main  thing  totally  unexplained — is  introduced,  let 
it  be  observed,  to  expose  an  alleged  "  singular  neglect  of  dis- 
crimination" in  the  use  I  had  made  of  the  passage.  I  had,  it 
seems,  been  guilty  of  the  extraordinary  mistake  of  supposing 
Hagar  and  Sarah  to  be  themselves  the  representatives  in  the 
apostle's  allegorization,  and  not,  as  I  should  have  done,  the 
objects  represented.  Does  any  of  my  readers,  with  all  the 
advantage  of  the  reviewer's  explanation,  recognize  the  impor- 
tance of  this  distinction  ?  Or  can  he  tell  how  it  serves  to  ex- 
plicate the  apostle's  argument  ?  I  can  not  imagine  how  any 
one  should  do  so.  In  itself  it  might  have  been  of  no  moment, 
though  it  is  of  much  for  the  apostle's  argument,  whether  Hagar 
and  Sarah  be  said  to  represent  the  two  covenants  of  law  and 
grace,  or  the  two  covenants  be  said  to  represent  them;  as  in 
Ileb.  ix.  24  it  is  of  no  moment  whether  tne  earthly  sanctuary 
be  called  the  antitype  of  the  heavenly,  or  the  heavenly  of  the 
earthly.  There  is  in  both  cases  alike  a  mutual  representation, 
or  relative  correspondence;  and  it  is  the  nature  of  the  corre- 
spondence, inferior  and  preparatory  in  the  one  case,  spiritual 
and  ultimate  in  the  other,  which  is  chiefly  important.  It  is 


82  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

that  (though  entirely  overlooked  by  the  reviewer)  which  makes 
the  apostle's  appeal  here  to  the  historical  transactions  in  the 
family  of  Abraham  suitable  and  appropriate  to  the  object  he 
has  in  view.  For  it  is  by  the  mothers  and  their  natural  off- 
spring he  intends  to  throw  light  on  the  covenants,  and  their 
respective  tendencies  and  results.  It  was  the  earlier  that 
exemplified  and  illustrated  the  later,  not  the  later  that  exem- 
plified and  illustrated  the  earlier;  otherwise  the  reference  of 
the  apostle  is  .misplaced,  and  the  reasoning  he  founds  on  it 
manifestly  inept. 

One  specimen  more  of  this  school  of  interpretation,  and 
I  leave  it  Among  the  passages  of  Scripture  that  were  re- 
ferred to,  as  indicating  a  typical  relationship  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  in  God's  dispensations,  is  Matt.  ii.  15,  where  the 
Evangelist  speaks  of  Christ  being  in  Egypt  till  the  death  of 
Herod,  "  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the 
Lord  by  the  prophet,  saying,  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my 
Son."  The  allusion  to  this  passage  in  the  first,  as  well  as  in 
the  present,  edition  of  this  work,  was  never  meant  to  convey 
the  idea  that  it  was  the  only  scriptural  authority  for  conclud- 
ing a  typical  relationship  to  have  subsisted  between  Israel 
and  Christ.  It  was,  however,  referred  to  as  one  of  the  pas- 
sages most  commonly  employed  by  typological  writers  in 
proof  of  such  a  relationship,  and  in  itself  most  obviously  im- 
plying it.  But  what  says  the  reviewer?  "The  language  of 
Matthew  does  not  imply  that  it  (the  passage  in  Hosea)  was  a 
prophecy  of  Christ ;  he  simply  states  that  Jesus  continued  in 
Egypt  till  Herod's  death,  so  that  that  occurred  in  respect  tc 
Him  which  had  been  spoken  by  Jehovah  by  the  prophet,  Out 
of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  Son;  or,  in  otner  words,  so  that 
that  was  accomplished  in  respect  to  Christ  which  had  been 
related  by  the  prophet  of  Israel."  Was  there  not  good 
reason  for  indicating  a  close  affinity  between  the  typological 
principles  of  this  writer,  and  the  loose  interpretations  of  ra- 
tionalism? One  might  suppose  that  it  was  a  comment  of 
Paulus  or  Kuinoel  that  we  are  here  presented  with,  and  I 
transfer  their  paraphrase  and  notes  to  the  bottom  of  the 
page,  to  show  how  entirely  they  agree  in  spirit.1  If  the 
Evangelist  simply  meant  what  is  ascribed  to  him,  it  was 
surely  strange  that  he  should  have  taken  so  peculiar  a  way 
to  express  it.  But  if  the  words  he  employs  plainly  intimate 

1  Kuinoel:  Ut  adeo  hie  racte  possit  laudari,  quod  dominus  olim  inter- 
prets propheta  dixit,  nempe:  ex  .ZEgypto  vocavi  filium  meum.  Paulus: 
"  itXrfpov6Bai  is  here  fulfilling,  as  denoting  a  completion  after  the  resem- 
blance;" and  he  adopts  as  his  own  Ernesti's  paraphrase,  "Here  one  might 
say  with  greater  justice  (in  a  fuller  sense)  what  Hosea  said  of  Israel." 


MORE  RECENT  VIEWS.  88 

such  a  connection  between  Christ  and  Israel,  as  gave  to  the 
testimony  in  Hosea  the  force  of  a  prophecy  (which  is  the  nat- 
ural impression  made  by  the  reference),  who  has  any  right  to 
tame  down  his  meaning  to  a  sense  that  would  entirely  elimi- 
nate this  prophetical  element, — the  very  element  to  which, 
apparently,  he  was  anxious  to  give  prominence  ?  What  we 
have  here  to  deal  with  is  inspired  testimony  respecting  the 
connection  between  Israel  and  Christ;  and  it  can  not  have 
justice  done  to  it,  unless  it  is  taken  in  its  broad  and  palpable 
import.1 

2.  We  turn  now  to  the  other  class  of  writers,  whose  aim  it 
has  been  in  recent  times  to  enlarge  and  widen  the  typologi- 
cal field.  The  chief,  and  for  some  time  the  only,  distin- 
guished representatives  of  it  were  to  be  found  in  Germany ; 
as  it  was  there  also  that  the  new  and  more  profound  spirit  of 
investigation  began  to  develop  itself.  Near  the  commence- 
ment of  the  present  century  the  religions  of  antiquity  began 
to  form  the  subject  of  more  thoughtful  and  learned  inquiry, 
and  a  depth  of  meaning  was  discovered  (sometimes  perhaps 
only  thought  to  be  discovered)  in  the  myths  and  external 
symbols  of  these,  which  in  the  preceding  centuiy  was  not  so 
much  as  dreamt  of.  Creuzer,  in  particular,  Dy  his  great 
work  (Symbolilc)  created  quite  a  sensation  in  this  department 
of  learning,  and  opened  up  what  seemed  to  be  an  entirely 
new  field  of  research.  He  was  followed  by  Baur  (Symbdik 
und  Myihologie),  Gorres  (Mythengeschichte),  Muller,  and  others 
of  less  note,  each  endeavoring  to  proceed  further  than  pre- 
ceding inquirers  into  the  explication  of  the  religious  views  of 
the  ancients,  by  weaving  together  and  interpreting  what  is 
known  of  their  historical  legends  and  ritual  services.  These 
inquiries  were  at  first  conducted  merely  in  the  way  of  anti- 
quarian research  and  philosophical  speculation ;  and  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Old  Testament  was  deemed,  in  that  point  of  view, 
too  unimportant  to  be  made  the  subject  of  special  considera- 
tion. Creuzer  only  here  and  there  threw  out  some  passing 
allusions  to  it.  Even  Baur,  though  a  theologian,  enters  into 
no  regular  investigation  of  the  symbols  of  Judaism,  while  he 
expatiates  at  great  length  on  all  the  varieties  of  Heathenism. 
By  and  by,  however,  a  better  spirit  appeared.  Mosaism,  as 
the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament  is  called,  had  a  distinct 
place  allotted  it  by  Gorres  among  the  ancient  religions  of 
Asia.  And  at  last  it  was  itself  treated  at  great  length,  and 
with  distinguished  learning  and  ability,  in  a  separate  work — 
the  Symbdik  des  Mosaischen  Cuttus  of  Bahr  (published  in 

1  See  further,  under  oh.  ir.,  and  Appendix  A,  c.  4. 
Y«L  L — 3 


84  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUEE. 

1837-9).  This  continues  still  (1863)  to  hold  an  important 
place  in  Germany  on  the  subject  of  the  Mosaic  symbols,  al- 
though it  is  pervaded  by  fundamental  errors  of  the  gravest 
kind  (to  which  we  shall  afterwards  have  occasion  to  advert), 
and  not  unfrequently  falls  into  fanciful  views  on  particular 
parts.  Some  of  these  were  met  by  Hengstenberg  in  the 
second  volume  of  his  Authentic  des  Pentateuchus,  who  has 
also  furnished  many  good  typical  illustrations  in  his  Christ- 
ology  and  other  exegetical  works.  Tholuck,  in  his  Commen- 
tary on  the  Hebreios,  has  followed  in  the  same  track,  generally 
adopting  the  explanations  of  Hengstenberg;  and  still  more 
recently  (chiefly  since  the  publication  of  our  first  edition), 
further  contributions  have  been  made,  particularly  by  Kurtz, 
Baumgarten,  Delitzsch.  Even  De  Wette,  in  his  old  age, 
caught  something  of  this  new  spirit;  and  after  many  an  ef- 
fort to  depreciate  apostolic  Christianity  by  detecting  in  it 
symptoms  of  Judaical  weakness  and  bigotry,  he  made  at  least 
one  commendable  effort  in  the  nobler  direction  of  elevating 
Judaism,  by  pointing  to  the  manifold  germs  it  contained  of 
a  spiritual  Christianity.  In  a  passage  quoted  by  Bahr  (vol. 
i.  p.  16,  from  an  article  by  De  Wette  on  the  "  Characteristik 
des  Hebraismus  "),  he  says ;  "  Christianity  sprang  out  of  Ju- 
daism. Long  before  Christ  appeared,  the  world  was  prepared 
for  His  appearance :  the  entire  Old  Testament  is  a  great  proph- 
ecy, a  great  type  of  Him  who  was  to  come,  and  has  come.  Who 
can  deny  that  the  holy  seers  of  the  Old  Testament  saw  in 
spirit  the  advent  of  Christ  long  before  He  came,  and  in  pro- 
phetic anticipations,  sometimes  more,  sometimes  less  clear, 
described  the  new  doctrine?  The  typological  comparison, 
also,  of  the  Old  Testament  with  the  New,  was  by  no  means  a 
mere  play  of  fancy ;  nor  can  it  be  regarded  as  altogether  the 
result  of  accident,  that  the  evangelical  history,  in  the  most 
important  particulars,  runs  parallel  with  the  Mosaic.  Chris- 
tianity lay  in  Judaism  as  leaves  and  fruits  do  in  the  seed, 
though  certainly  it  needed  the  divine  sun  to  bring  them  forth." 
Such  language,  especially  as  coming  from  such  a  quarter, 
undoubtedly  indicated  a  marked  change.  Yet  it  must  not  be 
supposed,  on  reading  so  strong  a  testimony,  as  if  every  thing 
were  already  conceded ;  for  what  by  such  writers  as  De  Wette 
is  granted  in  the  general,  is  often  denied  or  explained  away 
in  the  particular.  Even  the  idea  of  a  coming  Messiah,  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  page  of  prophecy,  was  held  to  be  little  more 
than  a  patriotic  hope,  the  natural  product  of  certain  circum 
stances  connected  with  the  Israehtish  nation.1  Nor  did  the 

1  See  Hengstenberg,  Chrisiology,  voL  iv.  p.  391,  Trans. 


MOEE  RECENT  VIEWS.  86 

new  light  thus  introduced  lead  to  any  well-grounded  and 
regularly  developed  system  of  typology,  based  on  a  clear  and 
comprehensive  view  of  the  divine  dispensations.  Bahr  con- 
fined himself  almost  entirely  to  the  mere  interpretation  of  the 
symbols  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation,  and  hence,  even  when 
his  views  were  correct,  rather  furnished  the  materials  for  con- 
structing a  proper  typological  system,  than  himself  provided 
it.  And  it  has  Ibeen  noted  by  Tholuck  and  other  learned  men 
as  a  defect  in  their  literature,  that  they  are  without  any  work 
on  the  subject  suited  to  the  existing  position  and  demands  of 
theological  science.1 

It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  this  new  current  of 
opinion  among  the  better  part  of  theologians  on  the  Con- 
tinent, leads  them  to  find  the  typical  element  widely  dif- 
fused through  the  historical  and  prophetical,  as  well  as  the 
more  strictly  religious  portions  of  the  Old  Testament.  No 
one  who  is  any  degree  acquainted  with  the  exegetical  pro- 
ductions of  Hengstenberg  and  Olshausen,  now  made  access- 
ible to  English  readers,  can  have  failed  to  perceive  this,  from 
the  tone  of  their  occasional  references  and  illustrations.  Their 
unbiassed  exegetical  spirit  rendered  it  impossible  for  them  to 
do  otherwise ;  for  the  same  connection,  they  perceived,  runs 
like  a  thread  through  all  the  parts,  and  binds  them  together 
into  a  consistent  whole.  Indeed,  the  only  formal  attempt 
made  to  work  out  a  new  system  of  typological  interpretation, 
prior  to  the  incomplete  treatise  mentioned  in  the  last  note, — 
the  essay  of  Olshausen  (published  in  1824,  and  consisting 
only  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  widely  printed  pages), 
entitled  Ein  Wortiiber  tiefern  Schriftsinn, — has  respect  almost 
exclusively  to  the  historical  and  prophetical  parts  of  ancient 
Scripture.  When  he  comes  distinctly  to  unfold  what  he  calls 
the  deeper  exposition  of  Scripture,  he  contents  himself  with 
a  brief  elucidation  of  the  following  points : — That  Israel's  re- 
lation to  God  is  represented  in  Scripture  as  forming  an  image 

1  This  defect  can  not  yet  be  said  to  have  been  supplied;  not  by  the  Sym- 
bolique  du  Culte  de  L'Ancienne  Alliance  (1860)  of  Neumann,  published  since 
the  above  was  written — the  work  of  a  German,  though  written  in  French. 
For  not  only  is  the  work  incomplete  (the  first  part  only  having  appeared), 
but  it  possesses  more  the  nature  of  a  condensed  sketch  or  outline  of  the  sub- 
ject, than  a  full  investigation.  So  far  as  it  goes,  it  is  written  with  clearness 
and  vigor,  contains  some  fine  thoughts,  and  is  pervaded  by  an  earnest  and 
elevated  spirit.  Justice  requires  me  to  add,  that  it  appears  to  be  marred  by 
two  misleading  tendencies:  one  of  excess — attempting  to  carry  religion  too 
much  into  the  domain  of  science  (for  example,  in  the  use  made  of  Goethe's 
Theory  of  Colors  to  explain  some  of  the  Old  Testament  symbols);  the  other 
of  defect — viewing  religion  almost,  if  not  altogether  exclusively,  on  the  sub- 
jective side,  which  necessarily  leads  to  certain  meagre  and  arbitrary  explana- 
tions. Reference  may  possibly  be  made  to  some  of  them  in  the  sequel. 


36  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

of  all  and  each  of  mankind,  in  so  far  as  the  divine  life  is  pos- 
sessed by  them — that  Israel's  relation  to  the  surrounding 
heathen  in  like  manner  imaged  the  conflict  of  all  spiritual 
men  with  the  evil  in  the  world — that  a  parallelism  is  drawn 
between  Israel  and  Christ  as  the  one  who  completely  realized 
what  Israel  should  have  been — and  that  all  real  cnildren  of 
God  again  image  what,  in  the  whole,  is  found  imperfectly  in 
Israel  and  perfectly  in  Christ  (pp.  87-110). 

These  positions,  it  must  be  confessed,  indicate  a  consid- 
erable degree  of  vagueness  and  generality;  and  the  treatise, 
as  a  whole,  is  defective  in  first  principles  and  logical  pre- 
cision, as  well  as  fulness  of  investigation.  Klausen,  in  the 
following  extract  from  his  Hermeneutik,  pp.  334-345,  has 
given  a  fair  outline  of  Olshausen's  views:  "We  must  dis- 
tinguish between  a  false  and  a  genuine  allegorical  exposi- 
tion, which  latter  has  the  support  of  the  highest  authority, 
though  it  alone  has  it,  being  frequently  employed  by  tne 
inspired  writers  of  the  New  Testament.  The  fundamental 
error  in  the  common  allegorizing,  from  which  all  its  arbitra- 
riness has  sprung,  bidding  defiance  to  every  sound  principle 
of  exposition,  must  be  sought  in  this,  that  a  double  sense 
has  been  attributed  to  Scripture,  and  one  of  them  conse- 
quently a  sense  entirely  different  from  that  which  is  indi- 
cated by  the  words.  Accordingly,  the  characteristic  of  the 
genuine  allegorical  exposition  must  be,  that  it  recognizes  no 
sense  besides  the  literal  one — none  differing  from  this  in  na- 
ture, as  from  the  historical  reality  of  what  is  recorded ;  but 
only  a  deeper-lying  sense  (vitovoict),  bound  up  with  the  literal 
meaning  oy  an  internal  and  essential  connection — a  sense 
given  along  with  this  and  in  it;  so  that  it  must  present 
itself  whenever  the  subject  is  considered  from  the  higher 
point  of  view,  and  is  capable  of  being  ascertained  by  fixed 
rules.  Hence,  if  the  question  be  regarding  the  fundamental 
principles,  according  to  which  the  connection  must  be  made 
out  between  the  deeper  apprehension  and  the  immediate 
sense  conveyed  by  the  words,  these  have  their  foundation  in 
the  law  of  general  harmony,  by  which  all  individuals,  in  the 
natural  as  well  as  in  the  spiritual  world,  form  one  great  or- 
ganic system — the  law  by  which  all  phenomena,  whether  be- 
longing to  a  higher  or  a  lower  sphere,  appear  as  copies  of 
what  essentially  belongs  to  their  respective  ideas;  so  that 
the  whole  is  represented  in  the  individual,  and  the  indi- 
vidual again  :n  the  whole.  This  mysterious  relation  comes 
most  prominently  out  in  the  history  of  the  Jewish  people 
and  their  worship.  But  something  analogous  everywhere 
discovers  itself;  and  in  the  manner  in  which  the  Old  Testa- 


MOilK  REGENT  VIEWS.  87 

merit  is  expounded  in  the  New,  we  are  furnished  with  the 
rules  for  all  exposition  of  the  Word,  of  nature,  and  of  history." 

The  vague  and  unsatisfactory  character  of  this  mode  of 
representation  is  evident  almost  at  first  sight :  the  elements 
of  truth  contained  in  it  are  neither  solidly  grounded  nor  suf- 
ficiently guarded  against  abuse;  so  that,  with  some  justice, 
Klausen  remarks,  in  opposition  to  it:  "The  allegorizing  may 
perhaps  be  applied  with  greater  moderation  and  better  taste 
than  formerly ;  but  against  the  old  principle,  though  revived 
as  often  as  put  down, — viz.,  that  every  sense  which  can  be 
found  in  the  words  has  a  right  to  be  regarded  as  the  sense 
of  the  words, — the  same  exceptions  will  always  be  taken." 
If  the  Typology  of  Scripture  can  not  be  rescued  from  the 
domain  of  allegorizings,  it  will  be  impossible  to  secure  for  it 
a  solid  and  permanent  footing.  It  can  not  attain  to  this 
while  coupled  with  allegorical  license,  or  with  a  nearer  and 
deeper  sense.  It  is  proper  to  add,  that  Klausen  himself  has 
no  place  in  his  Hermeneutik  for  typical,  as  distinguished  from 
allegorical,  interpretations.  In  common  with  hermeneutical 
writers  generally,  he  regards  these  as  substantially  the  same 
in  kind,  and  the  one  only  as  the  excess  of  the  other.  Some 
application  he  would  allow  of  Old  Testament  Scripture  to 
the  realities  of  the  Gospel,  in  consideration  of  what  is  said 
by  inspired  writers  of  the  relation  subsisting  between  the 
two;  but  he  conceives  that  relation  to  be  of  a  kind  which 
scarcely  admits  of  being  brought  to  the  test  of  historical 
truth,  and  that  the  examples  furnished  of  it  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament arose  from  necessity  rather  than  from  choice. 

Later  writers  generally,  however,  on  the  Continent,  who 
have  meditated  with  a  profound  and  thoughtful  spirit  on  the 
history  of  the  divine  dispensations,  have  shown  a  disposition 
to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  Olshausen  rather  than  of  Klausen. 
And  it  can  not  but  be  regarded  as  a  striking  exemplification 
of  the  revolving  cycles  through  which  theological  opinion  is 
sometimes  found  to  pass,  that,  after  two  centuries  of  specula- 
tion and  inquiry,  a  substantial  return  has  been  made  by  some 
of  the  ablest  of  these  divines — though  by  diverse  routes — to 
the  more  fundamental  principles  of  the  Cocceian  school.  It 
was  characteristic  of  that  school  to  contemplate  the  dispensa- 
tions chiefly  from  the  divine  point  of  view,  according  to  which, 
the  end  being  eyed  from  the  beginning,  the  things  pertaining 
to  the  end  were  often,  by  a  not  unnatural  consequence,  made 
to  throw  back  their  light  too  distinctly  on  those  of  the  begin- 
ning, and  the  progressive  nature  of  the  divine  economy  was 
not  sufficiently  regarded.  It  was  further  characteristic  of  the 
«ame  school,  that,  viewing  every  thing  in  the  scheme  of  God 


88  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

as  planned  with  reference  to  redemption,  they  were  little  dis- 
posed to  discriminate  in  this  respect  between  one  portion  of  the 
earlier  things  belonging  to  it  and  another;  wherever  they  could 
trace  a  resemblance,  there  also  they  descried  a  type;  and 
every  thing  in  the  history  as  well  as  in  the  institutions  of 
the  Old  Covenant,  was  brought  into  connection  with  the  real- 
ities of  the  Gospel.  Now,  these  two  fundamental  character- 
istics of  Cocceianism,  somewhat  differently  grounded,  and  still 
more  differently  applied,  are  precisely  those  to  which  pecu- 
liar prominence  is  given  in  the  writings  of  such  men  as  Hof- 
mann,  Kurtz,  Lange,  and  others  of  the  present  day.  The  first 
of  these,  in  a  work  (  Weissagung  und  Erfuttung,  1841-44)  which, 
from  its  spirit  of  independent  inquiry,  and  the  fresh  veins  of 
thought  it  not  unfrequently  opened  up,  exerted  an  influence 
upon  many  who  had  no  sympathy  with  the  doctrinal  princi- 
ples of  the  author,  made  even  more  of  the  typical  element  in 
Old  Testament  history  than  was  done  by  the  Cocceians.  It  is 
in  the  typical  character  of  history,  rather  than  in  the  pro- 
phetic announcements  which  accompanied  it,  that  he  would 
find  the  germ  and  presage  of  the  future  realities  of  the  Gos- 
pel ;  the  history  foreshadowed  these ;  the  prophets,  acting  as 
the  men  of  superior  discernment,  simply  perceived  and  inter- 
preted what  was  in  the  history.  Therefore,  to  elevate  the 
historical  and  depress  the  prophetical  in  Old  Testament  Script- 
ure, might  be  regarded  as  the  general  aim  of  Hofmann's  un- 
dertaking :  yet  only  formally  and  relatively  to  do  so ;  for,  as 
expressive  of  the  religious  state  and  development  of  the  cov- 
enant people,  both  were  in  reality  depressed,  and  the  sacred 
put  much  on  a  level  with  the  profane.  This  will  sufficiently 
appear  from  the  following  illustration:  "Every  triumphal 
procession  which  passed  through  the  streets  of  Rome  was  a 
prophecy  of  Augustus  Caesar ;  for  what  he  displayed  through 
the  whole  of  his  career,  was  here  displayed  by  the  triumphant 

feneral  on  his  day  of  honor,  namely,  the  god  in  the  man, 
upiter  in  the  Roman  citizen.  In  tne  fact  that  Rome  paid 
such  honors  to  its  victorious  commanders,  it  pointed  to  the 
future,  when  it  should  rule  the  world  through  the  great 
emperor,  to  whom  divine  honors  would  be  paid."  This  he 
brings  into  comparison  with  the  allusion  made  in  John  xix. 
36  to  the  ordinance  respecting  the  passover  lamb,  that  a  bone 
of  it  should  not  be  broken ;  and  then  adds :  "  The  meaning 
of  the  triumph  was  not  fully  realized  in  the  constantly  recur- 
ring triumphal  processions;  and  so  also  the  meaning  of  the 
passover  was  not  fully  realized  in  the  yearly  passover  meals ; 
but  the  essential  meaning  of  both  was  to  be  fully  developed 
at  some  future  period,  when  the  prophecy  contained  in  them 


MORE  REGENT  VIEWS.  89 

should  also  be  fully  confirmed"  (i  p.  15).  But  what,  one 
naturally  asks,  did  the  prophecy  in  such  cases  amount  to? 
It  will  scarcely  be  alleged  that  even  the  most  gifted  Roman 
citizen  who  lived  during  the  period  of  triumphal  processions, 
could  with  any  certainty  have  descried  in  these  the  future 
possessor  of  the  imperial  throne.  It  could  at  the  most  have 
been  but  a  vague  anticipation  or  probable  conjecture,  if  so 
much  as  that ;  K>r,  however  the  elevation  of  Augustus  to  that 
dignity  might,  after  the  event  actually  occurred,  have  come 
to  be  regarded  "  as  the  top-stone  and  culminating  point  in 
the  history,"  assuredly  the  better  spirits  of  the  commonwealth 
were  little  disposed  to  long  for  such  a  culmination,  or  to  think 
of  it  beforehand  as  among  the  destinies  of  the  future.  It  is 
only  as  contemplated  from  the  divine  point  of  view  that  the 
triumphal  procession  could  with  any  propriety  be  said  to  fore- 
shadow the  imperial  dignity, — a  point  of  view  which  the 
event  alone  rendered  it  possible  for  men  to  apprehend;  and 
the  so-called  prophecy,  therefore,  when  closely  considered  and 
designated  by  its  proper  name,  was  merely  the  divine  pur- 
pose secretly  moulding  the  events  which  were  in  progress, 
and,  through  these,  marching  on  to  its  accomplishment. 
This,  and  nothing  more  (since  Zion  is  put  on  a  footing  with 
Rome),  is  the  kind  of  prophecy  which  Hofmann  would  find, 
and  find  exclusively,  in  the  facts  and  circumstances  of  Israel- 
itish  history.  Because  they  in  reality  culminated  in  the  won- 
ders of  redemption,  they  might  be  said  to  mark  the  progres- 
sion of  the  divine  procedure  toward  that  as  its  final  aim. 
But  who  could  meanwhile  conjecture  that  there  was  any 
such  goal  in  prospect?  The  prophets,  it  is  affirmed,  could 
not  rise  above  the  movements  of  the  current  history;  not 
even  the  seers,  by  way  of  eminence,  could  penetrate  further 
into  the  future  than  existing  relations  and  occurrences  might 
carry  them.  What  signified  it,  then,  that  a  latent  prophecy 
lay  enwrapped  in  the  history?  There  was  no  hand  to  remove 
the  veil  and  disclose  the  secret.  The  prophecy  as  such  was 
known  only  in  the  heavenly  sphere ;  and  the  whole  that  could 
be  found  in  the  human  was  some  general  conviction  or  vague 
hope  that  principles  were  at  work,  or  a  plan  was  in  progress, 
which  seemed  to  be  tending  to  loftier  issues  than  had  yet 
been  reached. 

This  scheme  of  Hofmann  is  too  manifestly  an  exaggeration 
of  a  particular  aspect  of  the  truth  to  be  generally  accepted  as 
a  just  explanation  of  the  whole ;  by  soaring  too  high  in  one 
direction,  fixing  the  eye  too  exclusively  on  the  divine  side  of 
things,  it  leaves  the  human  bereft  of  its  proper  significance 
and  value — reduces  it,  in  fact,  to  a  rationalistic  basis.  Heng- 


40  THE  TYPOLOGY  O*    SOKIPTUKE. 

stenberg  has  justly  said  of  it,  in  the  last  edition  of  his  Chris- 
tology  (vol.  iv.  p.  389),  that  "by  overthrowing  prophecy,  in 
the  strict  sense,  it  necessarily  involves  acted  prophecy  (or 
type)  in  the  same  fate;  and  that  it  is  nothing  but  an  illusion 
to  attempt  to  elevate  types  at  the  expense  of  prophecy." 
Without,  however,  attempting  after  this  fashion  to  sacrifice 
the  one  of  these  for  the  sake  of  the  other,  various  theologians 
have  sought  to  combine  them,  so  as  to  make  the  one  the 
proper  complement  of  the  other — two  divinely-appointed 
factors  in  the  production  of  a  common  result,  such  as  the 
necessities  of  the  Church  required.  Thus  'Kurtz,1  while  he 
contends  for  the  proper  function  of  prophecy,  as  having  to  do 
with  the  future  not  less  than  the  present,  maintains  that  the 
history  also  of  the  Old  Covenant  was  prophetic,  "  both  be- 
cause it  foreshadows,  and  because  it  stands  in  living  and  con- 
tinuous relation  to,  the  plan  of  salvation  which  was  going  to 
be  manifested."  He  thinks  it  belongs  to  prophecy  alone  to 
disclose,  with  requisite  freedom  and  distinctness,  the  connec- 
tion between  what  at  any  particular  time  was  possessed  and 
what  was  still  wanted,  or  between  the  fulfilments  of  promise 
already  made  and  the  expectations  which  remained  to  be  sat- 
isfied ;  but  in  doing  this,  prophecy  serves  itself  of  the  history 
as  not  only  providing  the  occasion,  but  also  containing  the 
germ  of  what  was  to  come.  He  therefore  holds  that  the 
sacred  history  possesses  a  typical  character,  which  appears 
prominently,  continuously,  markedly  in  decided  outlines,  and 
in  a  manner  patent  not  only  to  posterity,  but,  by  the  assist- 
ance of  prophecy,  to  contemporaries  also,  according  to  the 
measure  that  their  spiritual  capacity  might  enable  them  to 
receive  it.  This  character  belongs  alike  to  events,  institu- 
tions, and  dispensations;  but  in  what  manner  or  to  what 
extent  it  is  to  be  carried  out  in  particular  cases,  nothing  be- 
yond a  few  general  lines  have  been  indicated. 

These  views  of  the  typical  element  contained  in  the  his- 
tory and  institutions  of  the  Old  Covenant,  while  they  present 
certain  fundamental  agreements  with  the  principles  of  the 
Cocceian  school,  have  this  also  in  common  with  it,  that  they 
take  the  need  for  redemption — the  fall  of  man — as  the  proper 
starting-point  alike  for  type  and  prophecy.  But  another  and 
influential  class  of  theologians,  having  its  representatives  in 
this  country  as  well  as  on  the  Continent,  has  of  late  advanced 
a  step  further,  and  holds  that  creation  itself,  and  the  state 
and  circumstances  of  man  before  as  well  as  after  the  fa^', 
equally  possessed  a  typical  character,  being  from  the 

•  Hist,  of  Old  Cm).,  Introd.  §  7,  a 


MORE   EECENT  VIEWS.  41 

inwrought  with  prophetic  indications  of  the  person  and  king- 
dom of  Christ.  To  this  class  belong  all  who  have  espoused 
the  position  (not  properly  a  new  one,  for  it  is  well  known  to 
have  been  maintained  by  some  of  the  scholastic  divines),  that 
the  incarnation  of  Godhead  in  the  person  of  Christ  was  des- 
tined to  take  place  irrespective  of  the  fall,  and  that  the  cir- 
cumstances connected  with  this  only  determined  the  specific 
form  in  which  He  was  to  appear,  and  the  nature  of  the  work 
He  had  to  do,  but  not  the  purpose  Hself  of  a  personal  in- 
dwelling of  Godhead  in  the  flesh  of  man,  which  is  held  to 
have  been  indispensable  for  the  full  manifestation  of  the 
divine  character,  and  the  perfecting  of  the  idea  of  humanity. 
The  advocates  of  this  view  include  Lange,  Dorner,  Liebner, 
Ebrard,  Martensen,  with  several  others  of  reputation  in  Ger- 
many, and  in  this  country,  Dean  Trench  (in  his  Sermons 
preached  before  the  University  of  Cambridge).  Along  with 
these  there  are  others — in  particular,  Dr.  M'Cosh,  the  late 
Hugh  Miller,  also  the  late  Mr.  M'Donald  of  Edinkillie — who, 
without  distinctly  committing  themselves  to  this  view  of  the 
incarnation,  yet,  on  the  ground  of  the  analogy  pervading  the 
fields  alike  of  nature  and  redemption  in  respect  to  the  preva- 
lence of  typical  forms — on  this  ground,  at  least,  more  espe- 
cially and  peculiarly — hold  not  less  decidedly  than  the  theo- 
logians above  named,  the  existence  of  a  typical  element  in 
the  original  frame  and  constitution  of  things. 

Such  being  the  turn  that  later  speculations  upon  this  sub- 
ject have  taken,  it  manifestly  becomes  necessary  to  examine 
all  the  more  carefully  into  the  nature  and  properties  of  a 
type.  We  must  endeavor  to  arrive  (if  possible)  at  some 
definite  ideas  and  fundamental  principles  on  the  general 
subject,  before  entering  on  the  consideration  of  the  partic- 
ular modes  of  revelation  bv  type,  to  which,  however,  the 
larger  portion  of  our  investigations  must  still  be  directed. 


CHAPTER  SECOND. 

THE   PROPER  NATURE  AND  PROVINCE  OP  TYPOLOGY. 1.   SCRIPTURAL  USE 

OF    THE    WORD    TYPE COMPARISON    OP   THIS    WITH    THE    THEOLOG- 
ICAL  DISTINCTIVE    CHARACTERISTICS   OP  A   TYPICAL    RELATIONSHIP, 

VIEWED  WITH  RESPECT   TO   THE  RELIGIOUS  INSTITUTIONS  OP  THE  OLD 
TESTAMENT. 

THE  language  of  Scripture  being  essentially  popular,  its 
use  of  particular  terms  naturally  partakes  of  the  freedom  and 
variety  which  are  wont  to  appear  in  the  current  speech  of  a 
people;  and  it  rarely  if  ever  happens  that  worots  are  em- 
ployed, in  respect  to  topics  requiring  theological  treatment, 
with  such  precision  and  uniformity  as  to  enable  us,  from  this 
source  alone,  to  attain  to  proper  accuracy  and  fulness.  The 
word  type  (Z-UTTOS)  forms  no  exception  to  this  usage.  Occur- 
ring once,  at  least,  in  the  natural  sense  of  mark  or  impress 
made  by  a  hard  substance  on  one  of  softer  material  (John 
xx.  25),  it  commonly  bears  the  general  import  of  model,  pat- 
tern, or  exemplar,  but  with  such  a  wide  diversity  of  applica- 
tion as  to  comprehend  a  material  object  of  worship,  or  idol 
(Acts  vii.  43),  an  external  framework  constructed  for  the  ser- 
vice of  God  (Acts  vii.  44;  Heb.  viii.  5),  the  form  or  copy  of 
an  epistle  (Acts  xxiii.  25),  a  method  of  doctrinal  instruction 
delivered  by  the  first  heralds  and  teachers  of  the  Gospel  (Rom. 
vi.  17),  a  representative  character,  or,  in  certain  respects,  nor- 
mal example  (Rom.  v.  14;  1  Cor.  x.  11;  Phil.  iii.  17;  1  Thess. 
i.  7 ;  1  Pet.  v.  3).  Such  in  New  Testament  Scripture  is  the 
diversified  use  of  the  word  type  (disguised,  however,  under 
other  terms  in  the  authorized  version).  It  is  only  in  the  last 
of  the  applications  noticed,  that  it  has  any  distinct  bearing 
on  the  subject  of  our  present  inquiry;  and  this  also  comprises 
under  it  so  much  of  diversity,  that  if  we  were  to  draw  our 
definition  of  a  type  simply  from  the  scriptural  use  of  the 
term,  we  could  give  no  more  specific  description  of  it  than 
this — a  certain  pattern  or  exemplar  exhibited  in  the  position 
and  character  of  some  individuals,  to  which  others  may  or 
should  be  conformed.  Adam  stood,  we  are  told,  in  the  rela- 


NATURE  OF  A  TYPE.  48 

tion  of  a  type  to  the  coming  Messiah,  backsliding  Israelites 
in  their  guilt  and  punishment  to  similar  characters  in  Chris- 
tian times,  faithful  pastors  to  their  flocks,  first  converts  to 
those  who  should  afterwards  believe, — a  manifestly  varied 
relationship,  closer  in  some  than  in  others,  yet  in  each  im- 
plying a  certain  resemblance  between  the  parties  associated 
together;  something  in  the  one  that  admitted  of  being  vir- 
tually reproduced  in  the  other.  Thus  defined  and  under- 
stood, it  will  be  observed  that  a  type  is  no  more  peculiar  to 
one  dispensation  than  another.  It  is  to  be  found  now  in  the 
true  pastor  or  the  exemplary  Christian  as  well  as  formerly  in 
Adam  or  in  Israel ;  and  since  believers  generally  are  predes- 
tined to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  Christ,  he  might,  of 
course,  be  designated  for  all  times  emphatically  and  pre-em- 
inently the,  type  of  the  Church. 

But  presented  in  this  loose  and  general  form,  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  nature  of  a  type  that  can  be  said  to  call  for  par- 
ticular investigation,  or  that  may  occasion  material  difference 
of  opinion.  The  subject  involves  only  a  few  leading  ideas, 
which  are  familiar  to  every  intelligent  reader  of  Scripture, 
and  which  can  prove  of  small  avail  to  the  satisfactory  expli- 
cation of  what  is  peculiar  in  the  history  of  the  divine  dispen- 
sations. When,  however,  with  reference  more  to  the  subject 
itself  than  to  the  mere  employment  of  a  particular  word  in 
connection  with  it,  we  pursue  our  researches  into  the  testi- 
mony of  Scripture,  we  presently  find  relations  indicated  be- 
tween one  class  of  things  and  another,  which,  while  the  same 
in  kind,  perhaps,  with  those  just  noticed,  have  yet  distinctive 
features  of  their  own,  which  call  for  thoughtful  inquiry  and 
discriminating  treatment.  These  have  already  to  some  extent 
come  into  consideration  in  the  historical  and  critical  review 
that  has  been  presented  of  past  opinion.1  It  is  enough  to 
refer  here  to  such  passages  as  Heb.  ix.  24 — where  the  holy 
places  of  the  earthly  tabernacle  are  called  the  antitypes  (avri- 
rvita)  of  the  true  or  heavenly;  the  latter,  of  course,  according 
to  this  somewhat  peculiar  phraseology,  being  viewed  as  the 
types  of  the  other :  Heb.  viii.  5 — where  the  whole  structure  of 
the  tabernacle,  with  its  appointed  ritual  of  service,  is  desig- 
nated an  example  and  shadow  (vTtodeiyjua  xai  tixtai)  of  heavenly 
things :  Ps.  ex.  4 ;  Heb.  vi.  10-12,  vii. — where  Melchizedek  is 
exalted  over  the  ministering  priesthood  of  that  tabernacle,  as 
bearing  in  some  important  respects  a  still  closer  relationship 
to  Christ  than  was  given  them  to  occupy:  1  Pet.  iii.  21 — where 
Christian  baptism  is  denominated  the  antitype  to  the  deluge, 

»  See  at  p.  22  sq. 


44  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SGRIPTUBE. 

and  by  implication  the  deluge  is  made  the  type  oi  baptism : 
Matt.  li.  15;  Luke  xxii.  16;  1  Cor.  v.  7;  John  u.  19,  vi.  31-33; 
1  Cor.  x.  4 — where  Christ  is  in  a  manner  identified  with 
the  corporate  Israel,  the  passover,  the  temple,  the  manna, 
the  water-giving  rock.  When  reading  these  passages,  and 
others  of  alike  description,  our  minds  instinctively  inquire—- 
what is  the  nature  of  the  connection  indicated  by  them  be- 
tween the  past  and  the  present  in  God's  economy  ?  Is  it 
such  as  subsists  between  things  alike  in  principle,  but  diverse 
in  form  ?  between  things  on  the  same  spiritual  level,  or  things 
rising  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  level?  Is  the  connection 
strictly  the  same  in  all,  or  does  it  vary  with  the  objects  and 
parties  compared?  What  light  is  thrown  by  the  different 
elements  entering  into  it  upon  the  revealed  character  of  God, 
and  the  progressive  condition  of  His  Church  ?  Can  we  dis- 
cover in  them  the  lines  of  a  divine  harmony  in  the  one  respect, 
and  of  a  human  harmony  in  the  other  ?  Such  are  the  ques- 
tions which  here  naturally  press  on  us  for  solution ;  and  they 
are  questions  altogether  occasioned  by  peculiarities  in  pre- 
ceding dispensations  as  compared  with  that  of  the  Gospel. 
The  relation  of  the  present  to  the  still  coming  future — which 
is  that  simply  of  the  initial  to  the  terminal  processes  of  the 
salvation  already  accomplished — is  of  a  much  less  compli- 
cated and  embarrassing  kind,  and  can  scarcely  be  said  to 
give  rise  to  questions  of  the  class  now  specified. 

In  another  respect,  however,  substantially  the  same  ques- 
tions arise — namely,  in  connection  with  much  that  is  indi- 
cated of  the  anticipated  future  of  the  Christian  Church,  point- 
ing, as  it  does,  even  after  Christian  realities  had  come,  to 
further  developments  of  the  forms  and  relations  of  earlier 
times.  For  in  the  prospective  delineations  which  are  given 
us  in  Scripture  respecting  the  final  issues  of  Christ's  kingdom 
among  men,  while  the  foundation  of  all  undoubtedly  lies  in 
the  mediatorial  work  and  offices  of  Christ  Himself,  it  still  is 
through  the  characters,  ordinances,  and  events  of  the  Old 
Covenant,  not  those  of  the  New  (with  the  exception  just  spe- 
cified), that  the  things  to  come  are  shadowed  forth  to  the 
eye  of  faith;  the  forms  of  things  in  the  remote  past  have  here 
also,  it  would  seem,  to  find  their  proper  complement  and 
destined  realization.  Thus  Israel  still  appears,  among  the 
prophetic  glimpses  in  question,  with  his  twelve  tribes,  his 
marvellous  redemption,  wilderness  sojourn,  and  rescued  in- 
heritance ; l  and  the  tabernacle  or  temple,  with  its  courts  and 
sanctuaries,  its  ark  of  testimony  and  cherubim  of  glory,  its 

i  Matt  iix.  28;  Bev.  vii  4-17,  xii.  11,  XT.  3. 


NATURE  OP  A  TYPE.  45 

altars  and  offerings;1  and  the  ancient  priesthood,  with  their 
linen  robes  and  angel-like  service;*  Zion  and  Jerusalem,  Baby- 
lon and  Euphrates,  Sodom  and  Egypt ;  *  and  more  remote  still, 
especially  when  the  mystery  of  God  in  Christ  is  seen  approach- 
ing its  consummation,  paradise  with  its  tree  of  life  ana  rivers 
of  gladness,  its  perennial  delights,  and  over  all  its  heaven- 
crowned  Lord,  with  the  spouse  formed  from  Himself  to  share 
with  Him  in  the  glory,  and  yield  Him  faithful  service  in  the 
kingdom.4  No  more,  amid  tne  anticipations  of  Christian  faith 
and  hope,  are  we  permitted  to  lose  sight  of  the  personages 
and  materials  of  the  earlier  dispensations,  than  in  those  which 
took  shape  under  ^>re-Christian  times. 

Having  respect,  therefore,  to  the  nature  of  the  subject  under 
consideration,  and  the  more  peculiar  difficulties  attending  it, 
rather  than  to  the  infrequent  and  variable  use  of  the  word  type 
in  Scripture,  theologians  have  been  wont  to  distinguish  be- 
tween existing  relationships  (such  as  of  a  pastor  to  his  people, 
or  of  Christ  to  the  heirs  of  His  glory)  and  those  which  connect 
together  bygone  with  Christian  times — the  things  pertaining 
to  the  Old  with  those  pertaining  to  the  New  Covenant.  The 
former  alone  they  have  usually  designated  by  the  name  of 
types,  the  latter  by  that  of  antitypes.  This  mode  of  distin- 
guishing by  theologians  has  been  represented  as  an  unwise 
departure  from  scriptural  usage,  and  in  itself  necessarily  fitted 
to  mislead.6  It  admits,  however,  of  a  reasonable  justification; 
and  to  treat  the  subject  with  any  thing  like  scientific  precision 
and  fulness,  without  determining  after  such  a  method  the 
respective  provinces  of  type  and  antitype,  would  be  found 
extremely  inconvenient,  if  not  impracticable.  The  testimony 
of  Scripture  itself,  when  fairly  consulted,  affords  ground  for 
the  distinction  indicated,  in  a  great  measure  apart  from  and 
beyond  the  application  of  the  specific  terms.  By  adhering 
closely  to  its  usage  in  respect  to  these,  and  disregarding  other 
considerations,  one  might  readily  enough,  indeed,  present 
some  popular  illustrations,  or  throw  off  a  few  general  outlines 
of  the  typical  field;  but  to  get  at  its  more  distinctive  charac- 
teristics, and  explicate  with  some  degree  of  satisfaction  the 
difficulties  with  which  it  invests,  to  our  view,  the  evolution 

>  2  Thess.  ii.  4;  Bev.  iv.  7,  8,  viii.  3,  xL  1,  2,  rv.  6-8,  xxi  3. 

*  Rev.  iv.  4,  xv.  6. 

a  Heb.  xii.  22;  Eev.  xL  8,  xiv.  1-8,  xvi.  12,  xxi.  2. 

*  Kev.  ii.  7,  vii.  17,  xix.  7,  xxi.  9. 

6  "  We  do  not  know  what  right  divines  have  to  construct  a  system  of  theo- 
logical types,  instead  of  a  system  of  Scripture  types.  We  are  sure  that  had 
they  kept  to  the  Scripture  use  of  the  term,  instead  of  devising  a  theological 
sense,  they  would  have  been  saved  from  much  extravagance,  and  evolved 
much  truth."— M' Cosh,  in  Typical  Forms,  p.  523. 


46  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUKE. 

of  God's  plan  and  ways,  is  a  different  thing,  and  demands  a 
greatly  more  exact  and  comprehensive  line  of  investigation. 
The  extravagance  which  has  too  often  characterized  the  spec- 
ulations of  divines  upon  the  subject  has  arisen,  not  from  tneir 
devising  a  theological  sense  for  the  word  type  (which  Scripture 
itself  might  be  said  to  force  on  them),  but  from  their  failure 
to  search  out  the  fundamental  principles  involved  in  the  whole 
representations  of  Scripture,  and  to  make  a  judicious  and  dis- 
criminating application  of  the  light  thence  arising  to  the 
different  parts  of  the  subject.1 

Understanding  the  word  type,  then,  in  the  theological 
sense, — that  is,  conceiving  its  strictly  proper  and  distinctive 
sphere  to  lie  in  the  relations  of  the  old  to  the  new,  or  the 
earlier  to  the  later,  in  God's  dispensations, — there  are  two 
things  which,  by  general  consent,  are  held  to  enter  into  the 
constitution  of  a  tvpe.  It  is  held,  first,  that  in  the  character, 
action,  or  institution  which  is  denominated  the  type,  there 
must  be  a  resemblance  in  form  or  spirit  to  what  answers  to 
it  under  the  Gospel ;  and  secondly,  that  it  must  not  be  any  char- 
acter, action,  or  institution  occurring  in  Old  Testament  Script- 
ure, but  such  only  as  had  their  ordination  of  God,  and  were 
designed  by  Him  to  foreshadow  and  prepare  for  the  better 
things  of  the  Gospel.  For,  as  Bishop  Marsh  has  justly  re- 
marked, "  to  constitute  one  thing  the  type  of  another,  some- 
thing more  is  wanted  than  mere  resemblance.  The  former 
must  not  only  resemble  the  latter,  but  must  have  been  designed 
to  resemble  the  latter.  It  must  have  been  so  designed  in  its 
original  institution.  It  must  have  been  designed  as  some- 
thing preparatory  to  the  latter.  The  type  as  well  as  the  anti- 
type must  have  been  pre-ordained ;  and  they  must  have  been 
pre-ordained  as  constituent  parts  of  the  same  general  scheme 
of  Divine  Providence.  It  is  this  previous  design  and  this  pre~ 
ordained  connection  [together,  of  course,  with  the  resem- 
blance], which  constitute  the  relation  of  type  and  antitype."  * 
We  insert,  together  ivith  the  resemblance;  for,  while  stress  is 
justly  laid  on  the  previous  design  and  pre-ordained  connec- 
tion, the  resemblance  also  forms  an  indispensable  element  in 
this  very*  connection,  and  is,  in  fact,  the  point  that  involves 
the  more  peculiar  difficulties  belonging  to  the  subject,  and 
calls  for  the  closest  investigation. 

I.  We  begin,  therefore,  with  the  other  point — the  previous 
design  and  pre-ordained  connection  necessarily  entenng  into 

1  The  question,  whether  the  things  of  creation  should  be  formally  treated 
as  typical,  will  be  considered  in  Ch.  IV. 
•  Marsh's  Lectures,  p.  371. 


NATURE  OF  A  TYPE.  47 

the  relation  between  type  and  antitype.  A  relation  so  formed, 
and  subsisting  to  any  extent  between  Old  and  New  Testament 
things,  evidently  presupposes  and  implies  two  important  facts. 
It  implies,  first,  that  the  realities  of  the  Gospel,  which  consti- 
tute the  antitypes,  are  the  ultimate  objects  which  were  con- 
templated by  the  mind  of  God,  when  planning  the  economy 
of  His  successive  dispensations.  And  it  implies,  secondly, 
that  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  introduction  ot  these  ultimate 
objects,  He  placed  the  Church  under  a  course  of  training, 
which  included  instruction  by  types,  or  designed  and  fitting 
resemblances  of  what  was  to  come.  Both  of  these  facts  are 
so  distinctly  stated  in  Scripture,  and,  indeed,  so  generally 
admitted,  tnat  it  will  be  unnecessary  to  do  more  than  present 
a  brief  outline  of  the  proof  on  which  they  rest. 

1.  In  regard  to  the  first  of  the  two  facts,  we  find  the  des- 
ignation of  "  the  ends  of  the  world "  applied  in  Scripture  to 
the  Gospel-age ; l  and  that  not  so  much  in  respect  to  its  pos- 
teriority in  point  of  time,  as  to  its  comparative  maturity  in 
regard  to  the  things  of  salvation — the  higher  and  better 
things  having  now  come,  which  had  hitherto  appeared  only 
in  prospect  or  existed  but  in  embryo.  On  the  same  account 
the  Gospel  dispensation  is  called  "  the  dispensation  of  the  ful- 
ness of  times;"8  indicating  that  with  it  alone  the  great 
objects  of  faith  and  hope,  which  the  Church  was  from  the 
first  destined  to  possess,  were  properly  brought  within  her 
reach.  Only  with  the  entrance  also  of  this  dispensation  does 
the  great  mystery  of  God,  in  connection  with  man's  salvation, 
come  to  be  disclosed,  and  the  light  of  a  new  and  more  glorious 
era  at  last  breaks  upon  the  Church.  "  The  dayspring  from 
the  height,"  in  the  expressive  language  of  Zacharias,  then 
appeared,  and  made  manifest  what  had  previously  been  wrapt 
in  comparative  obscurity,  what  had  not  even  been  distinctly 
conceived,  far  less  satisfactorily  enjoyed.*  Here,  therefore, 
in  the  sublime  discoveries  and  abounding  consolations  of  the 
Gospel,  is  the  reality,  in  its  depth  and  fulness,  while  in  the 
earlier  endowments  and  institutions  of  the  Church  there  was 
no  more  than  a  shadowy  exhibition  and  a  partial  experience ; 4 
and  as  a  necessary  consequence,  the  most  eminent  in  spiritual 
light  and  privilege  before,  were  still  decidedly  inferior  even 
to  the  less  distinguished  members  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom.' 

i  1  Cor.  x.  11;  Heb.  xL  40. 

»  Eph.  i.  10. 

»  Luke  i  78;  1  John  ii.  8;  Horn.  xvi.  25,  26;  Col.  i  27;  1  Cor.  iL  7,  10. 

«  CoL  ii.  17;  Heb.  viil  5. 

»  Matt.  xi.  11,  where  it  is  said  respecting  John  the  Baptist,  "notwithstand- 
ing he  that  is  least  (6  ptxporepos)  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than 
he."  The  older  English  versions  retained  the  comparative,  and  rendered, 


48  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

In  a  word,  the  blessed  Redeemer,  whom  the  Gospel  reveals, 
is  Himself  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  scheme  of  God's 
dispensations ;  in  Him  is  found  alike  the  centre  of  Heaven's 
plan,  and  the  one  foundation  of  human  confidence  and  hope. 
So  that  before  His  coming  into  the  world,  all  things  of  neces- 
sity pointed  toward  Him;  types  and  prophecies  bore  testi- 
mony to  the  things  that  concerned  His  work  and  kingdom; 
the  children  of  blessing  were  blessed  in  anticipation  of  His 
promised  redemption ;  and  loith  His  coming,  the  grand  reality 
itself  came,  and  the  higher  purposes  of  Heaven  entered  on 
their  fulfilment.1 

2.  The  other  fact  presupposed  and  implied  in  the  relation 
between  type  and  antitype, — namely,  that  God  subjected  the 
Church  to  a  course  of  preparatory  training,  including  instruc- 
tion by  types,  before  He  introduced  the  realities  of  His  final 
dispensation, — is  written  with  equal  distinctness  in  the  page 
of  inspiration.  It  is  scarcely  possible,  indeed,  to  dissociate 
even  in  idea  the  one  fact  from  the  other;  for,  without  such  a 
course  of  preparation  being  perpetually  in  progress,  the  long 
delay  which  took  place  in  the  introduction  of  the  Messiah's 
kingdom,  would  be  quite  inexplicable.  Accordingly,  the 
Church  of  the  Old  Testament  is  constantly  represented  as 
having  been  in  a  state  of  comparative  childhood,  supplied 
only  with  such  means  of  instruction,  and  subjected  to  such 
methods  of  discipline  as  were  suited  to  so  imperfect  and  pro- 
visional a  period  of  her  being.  Her  law,  in  its  higher  aim 
and  object,  was  a  school-master  to  bring  men  to  Christ  ;*  and 
every  thing  in  her  condition — what  it  wanted,  as  well  as  what 
it  possessed,  what  was  done  for  her,  and  what  remained  yet 
to  oe  done — concurred  in  pointing  the  way  to  Him  who  was 
to  come  with  the  better  promises  and  the  perfected  salvation.* 
Such  is  the  plain  import  of  a  great  many  scriptures  bearing 
on  the  subject. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  in  regard  to  this  course  of  prep- 
aration, continued  through  so  many  ages,  that  every  thing 
in  the  mode  of  instruction  and  discipline  employed  ought  not 

"he  that «is  less  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven"  (Wickliffe,  Tyndale,  Oranmer, 
the  Geneva);  and  so  also  Meyer  in  his  Comm.,  "he  who  occupies  a  propor- 
tionately lower  place  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  Lightfoot,  Hengstenberg, 
and  many  others,  approve  of  this  milder  sense,  as  it  may  be  called,  but  Alford 
adheres  still  to  the  stronger,  "  the  least "  ;  and  so  does  Stier  in  his  Reden  Jesu, 
who,  in  illustrating  the  thought,  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "A  mere  child  that 
knows  the  catechism,  and  can  say  the  Lord's  prayer,  both  knows  and  pos- 
sesses more  than  the  Old  Testament  can  give,  and  so  far  stands  higher  and 
nearer  to  God  than  John  the  Baptist."  One  can  not  but  feel  that  this  is  put- 
ting an  undue  strain  on  our  Lord's  declaration. 

i  Kev.  i.  8;  Luke  ii.  25;  Acts  x.  43,  iv.  12;  Bom.  iii.  25;  1  Pet  i  10-12,  20. 

*  Gal.  iii.  24.  3  Heb.  vii,  viii.,  ix. 


NATURE  OF  BITUAL  TYPES.  49 

to  be  regarded  as  employed  simply  for  the  sake  of  those  who 
lived  during  its  continuance.  It  was,  no  doubt,  primarily 
introduced  on  their  account,  and  must  have  been  wisely 
adapted  to  their  circumstances,  as  under  preparation  for  bet- 
ter things  to  come.  But,  at  the  same  time,  it  must  also,  like 
the  early  training  of  a  well-educated  youth,  have  been  fitted 
to  tell  with  beneficial  effect  on  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Church 
in  her  more  advanced  state  of  existence,  after  she  had  actu- 
ally attained  to  those  better  things  themselves.  The  man  of 
mature  age,  when  pursuing  his  way  amid  the  perplexing 
cares  and  busy  avocations  of  life,  finds  himself  continually 
indebted  to  the  lessons  he  was  taught  and  the  skill  he  has 
acquired  during  the  period  of  his  early  culture.  And,  in  like 
manner,  it  was  undoubtedly  God's  intention  that  His  method 
of  procedure  toward  the  Church  in  her  state  of  minority,  not 
only  should  minister  what  was  needed  for  her  immediate 
instruction  and  improvement,  but  should  also  furnish  mate- 
rials of  edification  and  comfort  for  believers  to  the  end  of  time. 
If  the  earlier  could  not  be  made  perfect  without  the  things 
belonging  to  the  later  Church,1  so  neither,  on  the  other  hand, 
can  the  later  profitably  or  even  safely  dispense  with  the  ad- 
vantage she  may  derive  from  the  more  simple  and  rudi- 
mentary things  that  belonged  to  the  earlier.  The  Church, 
considered  as  God's  nursery  for  training  souls  to  a  meetness 
for  immortal  life  and  blessedness,  is  substantially  the  same 
through  all  periods  of  her  existence ;  and  the  things  which 
were  appointed  for  the  behoof  of  her  members  in  one  age, 
had  in  them  also  something  of  lasting  benefit  for  those  on 
whom  the  ends  of  the  world  are  come.* 

It  is  further  to  be  noted,  that  in  this  work  of  preparation 
for  the  more  perfect  future,  arrangements  of  a  typical  kind, 
being  of  a  somewhat  recondite  nature,  necessarily  occupied  a 
relative  and  subsidiary,  rather  than  the  primary  and  most  es- 
sential place.  The  Church  enjoyed  from  the  first  the  benefit 
of  direct  and  explicit  instruction,  imparted  either  immediately 
by  the  hand  of  God,  or  through  the  instrumentality  of  His 
accredited  messengers.  From  this  source  she  always  derived 
her  knowledge  of  the  more  fundamental  truths  of  religion, 
and  also  her  more  definite  expectations  of  the  better  things 
to  come.  The  fact  is  of  importance,  both  as  determining  the 
proper  place  of  typical  acts  and  institutions,  and  as  indicat- 
ing a  kind  of  extraneous  and  qualifying  element,  that  must 
not  be  overlooked  in  judging  of  the  condition  of  believers 
under  them.  Yet  they  were  not,  on  that  account,  rendered 

'  Heb.  xi  40.  *  1  Oor.  x.  6,  1L 

VOL.  I.- 


60  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUBE. 

less  valuable  or  necessary  as  constituent  parts  of  a  preparatory 
dispensation ;  for  it  was  through  them,  as  temporary  expedi- 
ents and  by  virtue  of  the  resemblances  they  possessed  to  the 
higher  things  in  prospect,  that  the  realities  of  Christ's  king- 
dom obtained  a  kind  of  present  realization  to  the  eye  of 
faith.  What,  then,  was  tne  nature  of  these  resemblances  ? 
Wherein  precisely  did  the  similarity  which  formed  more 
especially  the  preparatory  elements  in  the  Old,  as  compared 
with  the  New,  really  lie?  This  is  the  point  that  mainly  calls 
for  elucidation. 

II.  It  is  the  second  point  we  were  to  investigate,  as  being 
that  which  would  necessarily  require  the  most  lengthened  and 
careful  examination.  And  the  general  statement  we  submit 
respecting  it  is,  that  two  things  were  here  essentially  neces- 
sary :  tJiere  must  have  been  in  the  Old  the  same  great  elements  of 
truth  as  in  the  things  they  represented  under  the  New;  and  then, 
in  the  Old,  these  must  have  been  exhibited  in  a  form  more  level  to 
the  comprehension,  more  easily  and  distinctly  cognizable  by  the 
minds  of  men. 

1.  There  must  have  been,  first,  the  same  great  elements  of 
truth, — for  the  mind  of  God  and  the  circumstances  of  the 
fallen  creature  are  substantially  the  same  at  all  times.  What 
the  spiritual  necessities  of  men  now  are,  they  have  been  from 
the  time  that  sin  entered  into  the  world.  Hence  the  truth 
revealed  by  God  to  meet  these  necessities,  however  varying 
from  time  to  time  in  the  precise  amount  of  its  communica- 
tions, and  however  differing  also  in  the  external  form  under 
which  it  might  be  presented,  must  have  been,  so  far  as  dis- 
closed, essentially  one  in  every  age.  For,  otherwise,  what 
anomalous  results  would  follow !  If  the  principles  unfolded 
in  God's  communications  to  men,  and  on  which  He  regulates 
His  dealings  toward  them,  were  materially  different  at  one 
period  from  what  they  are  at  another,  then  either  the  wants 
and  necessities  of  men's  natural  condition  must  have  under- 
gone a  change,  or — these  being  the  same,  as  they  undoubtedly 
are — the  character  of  God  must  have  altered.  He  can  not  be 
the  immutable  Jehovah.  Besides,  the  very  idea  of  a  course 
of  preparatory  dispensations  were,  on  the  supposition  in  ques- 
tion, manifestly  excluded ;  since  that  could  have  had  no  proper 
ground  to  rest  on,  unless  there  was  a  deep-rooted  and  funda- 
mental agreement  between  what  was  merely  provisional  and 
what  was  final  and  ultimate  in  the  matter.  The  primary  and 
essential  elements  of  truth,  therefore,  which  are  embodied  in 
the  facts  of  the  Gospel,  and  on  which  its  economy  of  grace  is 
based,  can  not,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  of  recent  origin — 


NATURE  OF  RITUAL  TYPES.  61 

as  if  they  were  altogether  peculiar  to  the  New  Testament  dis- 
pensation, and  had  only  begun  with  the  entrance  of  it  to  ob- 
tain a  place  in  the  government  of  God.  On  the  contrary, 
their  existence  must  have  formed  the  groundwork,  and  their 
varied  manifestation  the  progress,  of  any  preparatory  dispen- 
sations that  might  be  appointed.  And  whatever  ulterior 
respect  the  typical  characters,  actions,  or  institutions  of  those 
earlier  dispensations  might  carry  to  the  coming  realities  of 
the  Gospel,  their  more  immediate  intention  and  use  must 
have  consisted  in  the  exhibition  they  gave  of  the  vital  and 
fundamental  truths  common  alike  to  all  dispensations. 

2.  If  a  clear  and  conclusive  certainty  attaches  to  this  part 
of  our  statement,  it  does  so  in  even  an  increased  ratio  to  the 
other.  Holding  that  the  same  great  elements  of  truth  must 
of  necessity  pervade  both  type  and  antitype,  we  must  also 
assuredly  believe  that  in  the  former  they  were  more  simply 
and  palpably  exhibited — presented  in  some  shape  in  which 
the  human  mind  could  more  easily  and  distinctly  apprehend 
them — than  in  the  latter.  It  would  manifestly  have  been 
absurd  to  admit  into  a  course  of  preparation  for  the  realities 
of  the  Gospel  certain  temporary  exhibitions  of  the  same  great 
elements  of  truth  that  were  to  pervade  these,  unless  the  pre- 
paratory had  been  of  more  obvious  meaning,  and  of  more  easy 
comprehension  than  the  ultimate  and  final.  The  transition 
from  the  one  to  the  other  must  clearly  have  involved  a  rise 
in  the  mode  of  exhibiting  the  truth  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
territory — from  a  form  of  development  more  easily  grasped, 
to  a  form  which  should  put  the  faculties  of  the  mind  to  a 
greater  stretch.  For  thus  only  could  it  be  wise  or  proper  to 
set  up  preparatory  dispensations  at  all.  These,  manifestly, 
had  been  better  spared,  if  the  realities  themselves  lay  more, 
or  even  so  much,  within  the  reach  and  comprehension  of  the 
mind,  as  their  temporary  and  imperfect  representations. 

Standing,  then,  on  the  foundation  of  these  two  principles, 
as  necessarily  forming  the  essential  elements  of  the  resem- 
blance that  subsisted  between  the  Old  and  the  New  in  God's 
dispensations,  we  may  now  proceed  to  consider  how  far  they 
can  legitimately  carry  us  in  explaining  the  subject  in  hand ; 
or,  in  other  words,  to  answer  the  question,  how  on  such  a 
basis  the  typical  things  of  the  past  could  properly  serve  as 
preparatory  arrangements  for  the  higher  and  better  things  of 
the  future?  We  shall  endeavor  to  answer  this  question,  in 
the  first  instance,  by  making  application  of  our  principles  to 
the  symbolical  institutions  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation,  which 
are  usually  denominated  the  ritual  or  legal  types.  For,  in 
respect  to  these  we  have  the  advantage  of  the  most  explicit 


62  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCRIPTURE. 

assertion  in  Scripture  of  their  typical  character;  and  we  are 
also  furnished  with  certain  general  descriptions  of  their  na- 
ture as  typical,  which  may  partly  serve  as  lights  to  direct  our 
inquiries,  and  partly  provide  a  test  by  which  to  try  the  cor- 
rectness of  their  results. 

Now,  viewing  the  institutions  of  the  dispensation  brought 
in  by  Moses  as  typical,  we  look  at  them  in  what  may  be 
called  their  secondary  aspect ;  we  consider  them  as  propJietic 
symbols  of  the  better  things  to  come  in  the  Gospel.  But  this  evi- 
dently implies  that  in  another  and  more  immediate  respect 
they  were  merely  symbols,  that  is,  outward  and  sensible  rep- 
resentations of  divine  truth,  in  connection  with  an  existing 
dispensation  and  a  religious  worship.  It  was  only  from  their 
being  this,  in  the  one  respect,  that  they  could,  in  the  other, 
be  prophetic  symbols,  or  types,  of  what  was  afterwards  to 
appear  under  the  Gospel ;  on  the  ground  already  stated,  that 
the  preparatory  dispensation  to  which  they  belonged  was 
necessarily  inwrought  with  the  same  great  elements  of  truth 
which  were  afterwards,  in  another  form,  to  pervade  the 
Christian.  Had  there  not  been  the  identity  in  the  truths 
here  supposed,  assimilating,  amid  all  outward  diversities,  the 
two  dispensations  in  spirit  to  each  other,  the  earlier  would 
rather  have  blocked  up  than  prepared  and  opened  the  way 
for  the  latter.  A  partial  exhibition  of  a  truth,  or  an  embodi- 
ment of  it  in  things  comparatively  little,  easily  grasped  by 
the  understanding,  and  but  imperfectly  satisfying  the  mind, 
may  certainly  make  way  for  its  exhibition  in  a  manner  more 
fully  adapted  to  its  proper  nature : — The  mind  thus  familiar- 
ized to  it  in  the  little,  may  both  have  the  desire  created  and 
the  capacity  formed  for  beholding  its  development  in  things 
of  a  far  higher  and  nobler  kind.  But  a  partial  or  defective 
representation  of  an  object,  apart  from  any  principles  common 
to  both,  must  rather  tend  to  pre-occupy  the  mind,  and  either 
entirely  prevent  it  from  anticipating,  or  fill  it  with  mistaken 
and  prejudiced  notions  of  the  reality.  If  such  a  representa- 
tion of  the  mere  objects  of  the  Gospel  had  been  all  that  was 
aimed  at  in  the  symbolical  institutions  of  the  Old  Testament 
— if  their  direct,  immediate,  and  only  use  had  been  to  serve, 
as  pictures,  to  prefigure  and  presentiate  to  the  soul  the  future 
realities  of  the  divine  kingdom — then  who  could  wonder  if 
these  realities  should  have  been  wholly  lost  sight  of  before, 
or  misbelieved  and  repudiated  when  they  came?  For,  in 
that  case,  the  preparatory  dispensation  must  have  been  far 
more  difficult  for  the  worshipper  than  the  ultimate  one. 
The  child  must  have  had  a  much  harder  lesson  to  read,  and 
a  much  higher  task  to  accomplish,  than  the  man  of  full- 


NATUKE  OF  EITUAL  TYPES.  53 

grown  and  ripened  intellect.  And  divine  wisdom  must  have 
employed  its  resources,  not  to  smooth  the  Church's  path  to 
an  enlightened  view  and  a  believing  reception  of  the  realities 
of  the  Gospel,  but  rather  to  shroud  them  in  the  most  pro- 
found and  perplexing  obscurities. 

Eveiy  serious  and  intelligent  believer  will  shrink  from 
this  conclusion.  But  if  he  does  so,  he  will  soon  find  that 
there  is  only  one  way  of  effectually  escaping  from  it,  and 
that  is,  by  regarding  the  symbolical  institutions  of  the  Old 
Covenant  as  not  simply  or  directly  representations  of  the 
realities  of  the  Gospel,  but  in  the  first  instance  as  parts  of  an 
existing  dispensation,  and,  as  such,  expressive  of  certain 
great  and  fundamental  truths,  which  could  even  then  be 
distinctly  understood  and  embraced.  This  was  what  might 
be  called  their  more  immediate  and  ostensible  design.  Their 
further  and  prospective  reference  to  the  higher  objects  of  the 
Gospel,  was  of  a  more  indirect  and  occult  nature ;  and  stood 
in  the  same  essential  truths  being  exhibited  by  means  of 
present  and  visible,  but  inferior  and  comparatively  inade- 
quate objects.  So  that,  in  tracing  out  the  connection  from 
the  one  to  the  other,  we  must  always  begin  with  inquiring, 
What,  per  se,  was  the  native  import  of  each  symbol  ?  What 
truths  did  it  symbolize  merely  as  part  of  an  existing  religion  ? 
and  from  this  proceed  to  unfold  how  it  was  fitted  to  serve  as 
a  guide  and  a  stepping-stone  to  the  glorious  events  and  issues 
of  Messiah's  kingdom.  This — which  it  was  the  practice  of 
the  elder  typological  writers  hi  great  measure  to  overlook — 
is  really  the  foundation  of  the  whole  matter;  and  without  it 
every  typological  system  must  either  contract  itself  within 
very  narrow  bounds,  or  be  in  danger  of  diverging  into  super- 
ficial or  fanciful  analogies.  The  Mosaic  ritual  had  at  once  a 
shell,  and  a  kernel, — its  shell,  the  outward  rites  and  observ- 
ances it  enjoined;  its  kernel,  the  spiritual  relations  which 
these  indicated,  and  the  spiritual  truths  which  they  embod- 
ied and  expressed.  Substantially  these  truths  and  relations 
were,  and  must  have  been,  the  same  for  the  Old  that  they  are 
for  the  New  Testament  worshippers,  having  in  each  the  same 
wants  and  necessities  to  meet,  and  the  same  God  condescend- 
ing to  meet  them.  There,  therefore,  in  that  fundamental 
agreement,  that  internal  and  pre-established  harmony  of  prin- 
ciple, we  are  to  find  the  bond  of  union  between  the  symbolical 
institutions  of  Judaism  and  the  permanent  realities  of  Mes- 
siah's kingdom.  One  truth  in  both — but  that  truth  existing 
first  in  a  lower,  then  in  a  higher  stage  of  development ;  in 
the  one  case  appearing  as  a  precious  bud  embosomed  and  but 
partially  seen  amid  the  imperfect  relations  of  flesh  and  time: 


54  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

in  the  other,  expanding  itself  under  the  bright  sunshine  of 
heaven  into  all  the  beauty  and  fruitfulness  of  which  it  was 
susceptible. 

To  make  our  meaning  perfectly  understood,  however,  we 
must  descend  from  the  general  to  the  particular,  and  apply 
what  has  been  stated  to  a  special  case.  In  doing  so,  we  shall 
go  at  once  to  what  may  justly  be  termed  the  very  core  of  the 
religion  of  the  Old  Covenant — the  rite  of  expiatory  sacrifice. 
That  this  was  typically  or  prophetically  symbolical  of  the 
death  of  Christ,  is  testified  with  much  plainness  and  fre- 
quency in  New  Testament  Scripture.  Yet,  independently  of 
this  connection  with  Christ's  death,  it  had  a  meaning  of  its  * 
own,  which  it  was  possible  for  the  ancient  worshipper  to 
understand,  and,  so  understanding,  to  present  througn  it  an 
acceptable  service  to  God,  whether  he  mi^ht  perceive  or  not 
the  further  respect  it  bore  to  a  dying  Saviour.  It  was  in  its 
own  nature  a  symbolical  transaction,  embodying  a  threefold 
idea:  first,  that  the  worshipper,  having  been  guilty  of  sin,  had 
forfeited  his  life  to  God;  then,  that  the  life  so  forfeited  must 
be  surrendered  to  divine  justice ;  and  finally  that  being  sur- 
rendered in  the  way  appointed,  it  was  given  back  to  him 
again  by  God,  or  he  became  re-established,  as  a  justified  per- 
son, in  the  divine  favor  and  fellowship.  How  far  a  transac- 
tion of  this  kind,  done  symbolically  and  not  really — by  means 
of  an  irrational  creature  substituted  in  the  sinner's  room,  and 
unconsciously  devoted  to  lose  its  animal  in  lieu  of  his  intelli- 
gent and  rational  life — might  commend  itself  as  altogether 
satisfactory  to  his  view ;  or  how  far  he  might  see  reason  to 
regard  it  as  but  a  provisional  arrangement,  proceeding  on 
the  contemplation  of  something  more  perfect  yet  to  come ; — 
these  are  points  which  might  justly  be  raised,  and  will  indeed 
call  for  future  discussion,  but  they  are  somewhat  extraneous  to 
the  subject  itself  now  under  consideration.  We  are  viewing 
the  rite  of  expiatory  sacrifice  simply  as  a  constituent  part  of 
ancient  worship, — a  religious  service  which  formally,  and 
without  notification  from  itself  of  any  thing  further  being 
required,  presented  the  sinner  with  the  divinely  appointed 
means  of  reconciliation  and  restored  fellowship  with  God. 
In  this  respect  it  symbolically  represented,  as  we  have  said, 
a  threefold  idea,  which  if  properly  understood  and  realized 
by  the  worshipper,  he  performed,  in  offering  it,  an  acceptable 
service.  And  when  we  rise  from  the  symbolical  to  the  typical 
view  of  the  transaction — when  we  proceed  to  consider  the  rite 
of  expiation  as  bearing  a  prospective  reference  to  the  redemp- 
tion of  Christ,  we  are  not  to  oe  understood  as  ascribing  to  it 
some  new  sense  or  meaning;  we  merely  express  our  oelief 


NATURE  OP  ETTUAL  TYPES.  56 

that  the  complex  capital  idea  which  it  so  impressively  sym- 
bolized, finds  its  only  true,  as  from  the  first  its  destined, 
realization  in  the  work  of  salvation  by  Jesus  Christ.  For  in 
Him  alone  was  there  a  real  transference  of  man's  guilt  to  one 
able  and  willing  to  bear  it ;  in  His  death  alone,  the  surrender 
of  a  life  to  God,  such  as  could  fitly  stand  in  the  room  of  that 
forfeited  by  the  sinner;  and  in  faith  alone  on  that  death,  a 
full  and  conscious  appropriation  of  the  life  of  peace  and  bless- 
ing obtained  by  Him  for  the  justified.  So  that  here  only  it  is 
we  perceive  the  idea  of  a  true,  sufficient,  and  perfect  sacrifice 
converted  into  a  living  reality — such  as  the  holy  eye  of  God, 
and  the  troubled  conscience  of  man,  can  alike  repose  in  with 
unmingled  satisfaction.  And  while  there  appear  precisely 
the  same  elements  of  truth  in  the  ever-recurring  sacrifices  of 
the  Old  Testament,  and  in  the  one  perfect  sacrifice  of  the  New, 
it  is  seen,  at  the  same  time,  that  what  the  one  symbolically 
represented,  the  other  actually  possessed ;  what  the  one  could 
only  exhibit  as  a  kind  of  acted  lesson  for  the  present  relief  of 
guilty  consciences,  the  other  makes  known  to  us,  as  a  work 
finally  and  forever  accomplished  for  all  who  believe  in  the 
propitiation  of  the  cross. 

The  view  now  given  of  the  symbolical  institutions  of  the 
Old  Testament,  as  prophetic  symbols  of  the  realities  of  the 
Gospel,  is  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  general  descriptions 
we  nave  of  their  nature  in  Scripture  itself.  These  are  of  two 
classes.  In  the  one  they  are  declared  to  have  been  shadows 
of  the  better  things  of  the  Gospel ;  as  in  Heb.  x.  1,  where  the 
law  is  said  to  have  had  "  a  shadow,  and  not  the  very  image 
of  good  things  to  come ; "  in  ch.  viii.  5,  where  the  priests  are 
described  as  "serving  unto  the  example  (copy)  and  shadow 
of  heavenly  things;"  and  again  in  Col.  ii.  16,  where  the  fleshly 
ordinances  in  one  mass  are  denominated  "  shadows  of  good 
things  to  come,"  while  it  is  added,  "  the  body  is  of  Christ." 
Now,  that  the  tabernacle,  with  the  ordinances  of  every  kind 
belonging  to  it,  were  shadows  of  Christ  and  the  blessings  of 
His  kingdom,  can  only  mean  that  they  were  obscure  and 
imperfect  resemblances  of  these;  or  that  they  embodied  the 
same  elements  of  divine  truth,  but  wanted  what  was  neces- 
sary to  give  them  proper  form  and  consistence  as  parts  of  a 
final  and  abiding  dispensation  of  God.  And  when  we  go  to 
inquire  wherein  did  the  obscurity  and  imperfection  consist, 
we  are  always  referred  to  the  carnal  and  earthly  nature  of  the 
Old  as  compared  with  th&  New.  The  tabernacle  itself  was  a 
material  fabric,  constructed  of  such  things  as  this  present 
world  could  supply,  and  hence  called  "a  worldly  sanctuary"; 
while  its  counterpart  under  the  Gospel  is  the  eternal  region 


56  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOEIPTUEK 

of  God's  presence  and  glory,  neither  discernible  by  fleshly 
eye,  nor  made  by  mortal  hands.  In  like  manner,  the  ordi- 
nances of  worship  connected  with  the  tabernacle  were  all 
ostensibly  directed  to  the  preservation  of  men's  present  exist- 
ence, or  the  advancement  of  their  well-being  as  related  to  an 
outward  sanctuary  and  a  terrestrial  commonwealth;  while  in 
the  Gospel  it  is  the  soul's  relation  to  the  sanctuary  above, 
and  its  possession  of  an  immortal  life  of  blessedness  and  glory, 
which  all  is  directly  intended  to  provide  for.  In  these  differ- 
ences between  the  Old  and  the  New,  which  bespeak  so  much 
of  inferiority  on  the  part  of  the  former,  we  perceive  the  dark- 
ness and  imperfection  which  hung  around  the  things  of  the  an- 
cient dispensation,  and  rendered  them  shadows  only  of  those 
which  were  to  come.  But  still  shadows  are  resemblances. 
Though  unlike  in  one  respect,  they  must  be  like  in  another. 
And  as  the  unlikeness  stood  in  the  dissimilar  nature  of  the 
things  immediately  handled  and  perceived — in  the  different 
materid,  so  to  speak,  of  the  two  dispensations,  wherein  should 
the  resemblance  be  found  but  in  the  common  truths  and  rela- 
tions alike  pervading  both?  By  means  of  an  earthly  taber- 
nacle, with  its  appropriate  services,  God  manifested  toward 
His  people  the  same  principles  of  government,  and  required 
from  them  substantially  the  same  disposition  and  character, 
that  He  does  now  under  the  higher  dispensation  of  the  Gos- 

§el.  For,  look  beyond  the  mere  outward  diversities,  and  what 
o  you  see?  You  see  in  both  alike  a  pure  and  holy  God,  en- 
shrined in  the  recesses  of  a  glorious  sanctuary,  unapproach- 
able by  sinful  flesh  but  through  a  medium  of  powerful  inter- 
cession and  cleansing  efficacy;  yet,  when  so  approached,  ever 
ready  to  receive  and  bless  with  the  richest  tokens  of  His  favor 
and  loving-kindness  as  many  as  come  in  the  exercise  of  gen- 
uine contrition  for  sin,  and  longing  for  restored  fellowship 
with  Him  whom  they  have  offended.  The  same  description 
applies  equally  to  the  service  of  both  dispensations;  for  in 
both  the  same  impressions  are  conveyed  of  God's  character 
respecting  sin  and  holiness,  and  the  same  gracious  feelings 
necessarily  awakened  by  them  in  the  bosom  of  sincere  wor- 
shippers. But,  then,  as  to  the  means  of  accomplishing  this, 
there  was  only,  in  the  one  case,  a  shadowy  exhibition  of  spir- 
itual things  through  earthly  materials  and  temporary  expedi- 
ents ;  while  in  the  other  the  naked  realities  appear  in  the  one 
perfect  sacrifice  of  Christ,  the  rich  endowments  of  the  Spirit 
of  grace,  and  the  glories  of  an  everlasting  kingdom. 

The  other  greneral  description  given  in  New  Testament 
ouripture  01  tne  propnedc  evmbols  or  types  of  the  Old  dis- 
pensation does  not  materiallv  dilfor  from  the  one  now  consid- 


NATURE  OF  RITUAL  TYPES.  57 


ered,  and,  wl.en  rightly  understood,  leads  to  the  same  result. 
According  to  it,  the  religious  institutions  of  earlier  times  con- 
tained the  rudiments  or  elementary  principles  of  the  world's 
religious  truth  and  life.  Thus,  in  Col.  ii.  20,  the  now  anti 
quated  ordinances  of  Judaism  are  called  "the  rudiments  of 
the  world";  and  in  Gal.  iv.  3,  the  Church,  while  under  these 
ordinances,  is  said  to  have  been  "  in  bondage  under  the  ele- 
ments (or  rudiments)  of  the  world."  The  expression,  also, 
which  is  found  in  ch.  iii.  24  of  this  Epistle  to  the  Galatians, 
"  the  law  was  our  pedagogue  to  bring  us  to  Christ,"  conveys 
much  the  same  idea ;  since  it  was  the  special  business  of  the 
ancient  pedagogue  to  train  the  youth  to  proper  habits,  and, 
without  himself  imparting  more  than  the  merest  elements  of 
learning,  to  conduct  him  to  those  who  were  qualified  to  give 
it.  The  law  did  this  for  such  as  were  placed  under  it,  by 
means  of  its  symbolical  institutions  and  ordinances,  which  at 
once  conveyed  to  the  understanding  a  measure  of  instruction, 
and  trained  and  disciplined  the  will.  It  was  from  its  very 
nature  imperfect,  and  pointed  to  something  higher  and  bet- 
ter. Believers  were  kept  by  it  in  a  kind  of  bondage,  but  one 
which,  by  its  formative  and  elevating  character,  was  ever 
ripening  its  subjects  for  a  state  in  which  it  should  no  more 
be  needed.  It  was  only  necessary  that  the  light  so  imparted 
should  be  received,  and  the  mode  of  life  enjoined  be  sincerely 
followed,  in  order  that  the  disciple  of  Moses  might  r>ass  with 
intelligence  and  delight  from  his  rudimental  tutelage,  under 
the  shadows  of  good  things,  into  the  free  use  and  enjoyment 
of  the  things  themselves. 

The  general  descriptions,  faien,  given  of  the  symbolical 
institutions  and  services  of  the  Old  Testament,  in  tneir  rela- 
tion to  the  Gospel,  perfectly  accord  with  the  principles  we 
have  advanced.  And  viewed  in  the  light  now  presented,  we 
at  once  see  the  essential  unity  that  subsists  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  dispensations,  and  the  nature  of  that  progression 
in  the  divine  plan  which  rendered  the  one  a  fitting  prepara- 
tion and  stepping-stone  to  the  other.  In  its  fundamental 
elements  the  religion  of  both  covenants  is  thus  found  to  be 
identical.  Only  it  appears  under  the  Old  Covenant  as  on  a 
lower  platform,  disclosing  its  ideas  and  imparting  its  bless- 
ings through  the  imperfect  instrumentalities  of  fleshly  rela- 
tions and  temporal  concerns;  while  under  the  New  every 
thing  rises  heavenwards,  and  eternal  realities  come  distinctly 
and  prominently  into  view.  But  as  ideas  and  relations  are 
more  palpable  to  the  mind,  and  lie  more  within  the  grasp 
of  its  comprehension,  when  exhibited  on  a  small  scale,  in 
corporeal  forms,  amid  familiar  and  present  objects,  than  on  a 


58  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUER 

scale  of  large  dimensions,  which  stretches  into  the  unseen, 
and  embraces  alike  the  divine  and  human,  time  and  eternity ; 
so  the  economy  of  outward  symbolical  institutions  was  in 
itself  simpler  than  the  Gospel,  and,  as  a  lower  exhibition  of 
divine  truth,  prepared  the  way  for  a  higher.  But  they  did 
this,  let  it  be  observed,  in  their  character  merely  as  symbolical 
institutions,  or  parts  of  a  dispensation  then  existing,  not  as 
typically  foreshadowing  the  things  belonging  to  a  higher  and 
more  spiritual  dispensation  yet  to  come.  It  was  compara- 
tively an  easy  thing  for  the  Jewish  worshipper  to  understand 
how,  from  time  to  time,  he  stood  related  to  a  visible  sanc- 
tuary and  an  earthly  inheritance,  or  to  go  through  the  pro- 
cess of  an  appointed  purification  by  means  of  water  and  the 
blood  of  slain  victims  applied  externally  to  his  body, — much 
more  easy  than  for  the  Christian  to  apprehend  distinctly  his 
relation  to  a  heavenly  sanctuary,  and  realize  the  cleansing 
of  his  conscience  from  all  guilt  by  the  inward  application  of 
the  sacrifice  of  Christ  and  the  regenerating  grace  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  But  for  the  Jewish  worshipper  to  do  both  his  own 
and  the  Christian's  part, — both  to  read  the  meaning  of  the 
svmbol  as  expressive  of  what  was  already  laid  open  to  his 
view,  and  to  descry  its  concealed  reference  to  the  yet  undis- 
covered realities  of  a  better  dispensation, — would  have  re- 
quired a  reach  of  discernment  and  a  strength  of  faith  far 
beyond  what  is  now  needed  in  the  Christian.  For  this  had 
been,  not  like  him  to  discern  the  heavenly,  when  the  heav- 
enly had  come,  but  to  do  it  amid  the  obscurities  and  imper- 
fections of  the  earthly;  not  simply  to  look  with  open  eye 
into  the  deeper  mysteries  of  God's  kingdom,  when  these  mys- 
teries are  fully  disclosed,  but  to  do  so  while  they  were  still 
buried  amid  the  thick  folds  of  a  cumbrous  and  overshadow- 
ing drapery. 

Yet  let  us  not  be  mistaken.  We  speak  merely  of  what  was 
strictly  required,  and  what  might  ordinarily  be  expected  of 
the  ancient  worshipper,  in  connection  with  the  institutions 
and  services  of  his  symbolical  religion,  taken  simply  by  them- 
selves. We  do  not  say  that  there  never  was,  mucli  less  that 
there  could  not  be,  any  proper  insight  obtained  by  the  children 
of  the  Old  Covenant  into  the  future  mysteries  of  the  Gospel. 
There  were  special  gifts  of  grace  then,  as  well  as  now,  occa- 
sionally imparted  to  the  more  spiritual  members  of  the  cove- 
nant, which  enabled  them  to  rise  to  unusual  degrees  of 
knowledge;  and  it  is  a  distinctive  property  of  the  spiritual 
mind  generally  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  imperfect,  to  seek 
and  long  for  the  perfect.  Even  now,  when  the  comparatively 
perfect  has  come,  what  spiritual  mind  is  not  often  conscious 


NATUEE  OF  EITTJAL  TYPES.  69 

to  itself  of  a  feeling  akin  to  melancholy,  when  it  thinks  of  the 
yet  abiding  darkness  and  disorders  of  the  present,  or  does 
not  fondly  cling  to  every  hopeful  indication  of  a  brighter 
future  ?  But  even  the  best  things  of  the  Old  Covenant  bore 
on  them  the  stamp  of  imperfection.  The  temple  itself,  which 
was  the  peculiar  glory  and  ornament  of  Israel,  still  in  a  very 
partial  and  defective  manner  realized  its  own  grand  idea  of  a 
people  dwelling  with  God,  and  God  dwelling  with  them ;  and 
hence,  because  of  that  inherent  imperfection,  it  was  distinctly 
intimated,  a  higher  and  better  mode  of  accomplishing  the 
object  should  one  day  take  its  place.1  So,  too,  the  palpable 
disproportion  already  noticed  in  the  rite  of  expiatory  sacrifice 
between  the  rational  life  forfeited  through  sin,  and  the  merely 
animal  life  substituted  in  its  room,  seemed  to  proclaim  the 
necessity  of  a  more  adequate  atonement  for  human  guilt,  and 
could  not  but  dispose  intelligent  worshippers  to  give  more 
earnest  heed  to  the  announcements  of  prophecy  regarding  the 
coming  purposes  of  Heaven.  But  yet,  when  we  have  admitted 
all  this,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  people  of  God  gener- 
ally, under  the  Old  Covenant,  could  attain  to  very  definite 
views  of  the  realities  of  the  Gospel;  nor  does  it  furnish  us 
with  any  reason  for  asserting  that  such  views  must  ever  of 
necessity  have  mingled  with  the  service  of  an  acceptable 
worshipper.  For  his  was  the  worship  of  a  preparatory  dis- 
pensation. It  must,  therefore,  have  been  simpler  and  easier 
than  what  was  ultimately  to  supplant  it  And  this,  we  again 
repeat,  it  could  only  be  by  being  viewed  in  its  more  obvious 
and  formal  aspect,  as  the  worship  of  an  existing  religion, 
which  provided  for  the  time  then  present  a  fitting  medium 
of  access  to  God,  and  hallowed  intercourse  with  heaven.  The 
man  who  humbly  availed  himself  of  what  was  thus  provided 
to  meet  his  soul's  necessities,  stood  in  faith,  and  served  God 
with  acceptance, — though  still  with  such  imperfections  in  the 
present,  and  such  promises  for  the  future,  that  the  more 
always  he  reflected,  he  would  become  the  more  a  child  of 
desire  and  hope.1 

•  Jer.  iii.  16,  17. 

*  If  any  one  will  take  the  trouble  to  look  into  the  elder  writers,  who  for- 
mally examined  the  typical  character  of  the  ancient  symbolical  institutions, 
he  will  find  them  entirely  silent  in  regard  to  the  points  chiefly  dwelt  upon  in 
the  above  discussion.     Lowman,  for  example,  On  the  Rational  of  the  Hebrew 
Worship,  and  Outram,  de  Sac.,  lib.  i.  c.  18,  where  he  comes  to  consider  the 
nature  and  force  of  a  type,  gave  no  proper  or  satisfactory  explanation  of  the 
questions,  wherein  precisely  did  the  resemblance  stand  between  the  type  and 
the  antitype,  or  how  should  the  one  have  prepared  the  way  for  the  other. 
We  are  told  frequently  enough  that  the  "  Hebrew  ritual  contained  a  plan,  or 
sketch,  or  pattern,  or  shadow  of  Gospel  things";  that  "the  type  adumbrated 
the  antitype  by  something  of  the  same  sort  with  that  which  is  found  in  the 


00  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUER 

We  have  spoken  as  yet  only  of  the  symbolical  institutions 
and  services  of  the  Old  Testament;  and  of  these  quite  gener- 
ally, as  one  great  whole.  For  it  is  carefully  to  be  notea,  that 
the  scriptural  designations  of  rudiments  and  shadows,  which 
we  have  shown  to  be  the  same  as  typical  when  properly  under- 
stood, are  applied  to  the  entire  mass  of  the  ancient  ordinances 
in  their  prospective  reference  to  Gospel  realities.  And  yet, 
while  New  Testament  Scripture  speaks  thus  of  the  whole,  it 
deals  very  sparingly  in  particular  examples ;  and  if  it  furnishes, 
in  its  language  and  allusions,  many  valuable  hints  to  direct 
inquiry,  it  still  contains  remarkably  few  detailed  illustrations. 
It  nowhere  tells  us,  for  example,  what  was  either  immediately 
symbolized  or  prophetically  shadowed  forth,  by  the  Holy  Place 
in  the  tabernacle,  or  the  shew-bread,  or  the  golden  candlestick, 
or  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  or,  indeed,  by  any  thing  connected 
with  the  tabernacle,  excepting  its  more  prominent  offices  and 
ministrations.  Even  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  enters 
with  such  comparative  fulness  into  the  connection  between  the 
Old  and  the  New,  and  which  is  most  express  in  ascribing  a 
typical  value  to  all  that  belonged  to  the  tabernacle,  can  yet 
scarcely  be  said  to  give  any  detailed  explanation  of  its  furni- 
ture and  services  beyond  the  rite  of  expiatory  sacrifice,  and  the 
action  of  the  high  priest  in  presenting  it,  more  particularly  on 
the  great  day  of  atonement.  So  that  those  who  insist  on  an 
explicit  warrant  and  direction  from  Scripture  in  regard  to  each 
particular  type,  will  find  their  principle  conducts  them  but  a 
short  way  even  through  that  department,  which,  they  are 
obliged  to  admit,  possesses  throughout  a  typical  character. 
A  general  admission  of  this  sort  can  be  of  little  use,  if  one  is 
restrained  on  principle  fron  touching  most  of  the  particulars ; 
one  might  as  well  maintain  that  these  stood  entirely  discon- 
nected from  any  typical  property.  So,  indeed,  Bishop  Marsh 
has  substantially  done;  for,  "that  such  explanations,"  he  says, 
referring  to  particular  types,  "are  in  various  instances  given 
in  the  New  Testament,  no  one  can  deny.  And  if  it  was 
deemed  necessary  to  explain  one  type,  where  could  be  the 
expediency  or  moral  fitness  of  withholding  the  explanation  of 
otners  ?  Must  not,  therefore,  the  silence  of  the  New  Testament 
in  the  case  of  any  supposed  type,  be  an  argument  against  the 

antitype,"  or  "by  a  symbol  of  it,"  or  "by  a  slender  and  shadowy  image  of 
it,"  or  "by  something  that  may  somehow  be  compared  with  it,"  etc.  But 
we  look  in  vain  for  any  thing  more  specific.  Townley,  in  his  Reasons  of  the 
Laws  of  Moses,  still  advances  no  further  in  the  dissertation  he  devotes  to  the 
Typical  Character  of  the  Mosaic  Institutions.  Even  Olshausen,  in  the  treatise 
formerly  noticed  (Ein  Wort  fiber  tiefern  Schriftsinn),  when  he  comes  to  unfold 
what  he  calls  his  deeper  exposition,  confines  himself  to  a  brief  illustration  ot 
the  lew  general  statements  formerly  mentioned.  See  p.  35. 


NATURE  OF  RITUAL  TYPES.  61 

existence  of  that  type?"1  Undoubtedly,  we  reply,  if  the 
Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament  professed  to  illustrate  the 
whole  field  of  typical  matter  in  God's  ancient  dispensations ; 
but  by  no  means  if,  as  is  really  the  case,  they  only  take  it  up 
in  detached  portions,  by  way  of  occasional  example;  and  still 
less,  if  the  effect  would  be  practically  to  exclude  from  the 
character  of  types  many  of  the  very  institutions  and  services 
which  are  declared  to  have  been  all  "  shadows  of  good  things 
to  come,  whereof  the  body  is  Christ."  How  we  ought  to 
proceed  in  applying  the  general  views  that  have  been  un- 
folded to  the  interpretation  of  such  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment symbols  as  have  not  been  explained  in  New  Testament 
Scripture,  will  no  doubt  require  careful  consideration.  But 
that  we  are  both  warranted  and  bound  to  give  them  a 
Christian  interpretation,  is  manifest  from  the  general  char- 
acter that  is  ascribed  to  them.  And  the  fact  that  so  much  of 
what  was  given  to  Moses  as  "  a  testimony  (or  evidence)  of 
those  things  which  were  to  be  spoken  after "  in  Christ,  re- 
mains without  any  particular  explanation  in  Scripture,  suffi- 
ciently justifies  us  in  expecting  that  there  may  also  be  much 
that  is  typical,  though  not  expressly  declared  to  be  such,  in 
the  other,  the  historical  department  of  the  subject,  which  we 
now  proceed  to  investigate. 

>  Lecture*,  p.  398. 


CHAPTER  THIRD. 

THE   PROPER  NATURE  AND  PROVINCE  OP  TYPOLOGY. II.   THE  HISTORICAL 

CHARACTERS  AND  TRANSACTIONS  OP  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT,  VIEWED  AS 
EXEMPLIFYING  THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERS  OF  A  TYPICAL  RELA- 
TIONSHIP  TYPICAL  FORMS  IN  NATURE NECESSITY  OF  THE  TYPICAL 

AS  A  PREPARATION  FOR  THE  DISPENSATION  OP  THE  FULNESS  OF 
TIMES. 

IN  the  preceding  chapter  we  have  seen  in  what  sense  the 
religious  institutions  and  services  of  the  Old  Covenant  were 
typical.  They  were  constructed  and  arranged  so  as  to  express 
symbolically  the  great  truths  and  principles  of  a  spiritual 
religion — truths  and  principles  which  were  common  alike  to 
Old  and  New  Testament  times,  but  which,  from  the  nature 
of  things,  could  only  find  in  the  New  their  proper  develop- 
ment and  full  realization.  On  the  limited  scale  of  the  earthly 
and  perishable — in  the  construction  of  a  material  tabernacle, 
and  the  suitable  adjustment  of  bodily  ministrations  and  sacri- 
ficial offerings — there  was  presented  a  palpable  exhibition  of 
those  great  truths  respecting  sin  and  salvation,  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  heart,  and  the  dedication  of  the  person  and  the  life 
to  God,  which  in  the  fulness  of  time  were  openly  revealed  and 
manifested  on  the  grand  scale  of  a  world's  redemption,  by  the 
mediation  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  that  pre-arranged 
and  harmonious,  but  still  inherently  defective  and  imperfect, 
exhibition  of  the  fundamental  ideas  and  spiritual  relations  of 
the  Gospel,  stood  the  real  nature  of  its  typical  character. 

Nor,  we  may  add,  was  there  any  thing  arbitrary  in  so 
employing  the  things  of  flesh  and  time  to  shadow  forth,  under 
a  preparatory  dispensation,  the  higher  realities  of  God's  ever- 
lasting kingdom.  It  has  its  ground  and  reason  in  the  organic 
arrangements  or  appearances  of  the  material  world.  For 
these  are  so  framed  as  to  be  ever  giving  forth  representations 
of  divine  truth,  and  are  a  kind  of  ceaseless  regeneration,  in 
which,  through  successive  stages,  new  and  higher  forms  of 
being  are  continually  springing  out  of  the  lower.  It  is  on 
this  constitution  of  nature  that  the  figurative  language  of 


mSTOBICAL  TYPES.  63 

Scripture  is  based.  And  it  was  only  building  on  a  founda- 
tion that  already  existed,  and  which  stretches  far  and  wide 
through  the  visible  territory  of  creation,  when  the  outward 
relations  and  fleshly  services  of  a  symbolical  religion  were 
made  to  image  and  prepare  for  the  more  spiritual  and  divine 
mysteries  of  Messiah's  kingdom.  Hence,  also,  some  of  the 
more  important  symbolical  institutions  were  expressly  linked 
(as  we  shall  see)  to  appropriate  seasons  and  aspects  of  nature. 
But  was  symbol  alone  thus  employed  ?  Might  there  not 
also  have  been  a  similar  employment  of  many  circumstances 
arid  transactions  in  the  province  of  sacred  history  ?  If  the 
revelation  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  with  the  blessings  of  His 
great  salvation,  was  the  object  mainly  contemplated  by  God 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  and  with  which  the  Church 
was  ever  travailing  as  in  birth, — if,  consequently,  the  previous 
dispensations  were  chiefly  designed  to  lead  to,  and  terminate 
upon,  Christ  and  the  things  of  His  salvation, — what  can  be 
more  natural  than  to  suppose  that  the  evolutions  of  Provi- 
dence throughout  the  period  during  which  the  salvation  was 
in  prospect,  should  have  concurred  with  the  symbols  of  wor- 
ship in  imaging  and  preparing  for  what  was  to  come  ?  It  is 
possible,  indeed,  that  the  connection  here  between  the  past 
and  the  future  might  be  somewhat  more  varied  and  fluctu- 
ating, and  in  several  respects  less  close  and  exact,  than  in  the 
case  of  a  regulated  system  of  symbolical  instruction  and  wor- 
ship, appointed  to  last  till  it  was  superseded  by  the  better 
things  of  the  New  dispensation.  This  is  only  what  might 
be  expected  from  the  respective  natures  of  the  subjects  com- 
pared. But  that  a  connection,  similar  in  kind,  had  a  place  in 
the  one  as  well  as  in  the  other,  we  hold  to  be  not  only  in  itself 
probable,  but  also  capable  of  being  satisfactorily  established. 
And  for  the  purpose  of  showing  this  we  lay  down  the  follow- 
ing positions: — First,  That  the  historical  relations  and  cir- 
cumstances recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  typically  ap- 
plied in  the  New,  had  very  much  both  the  same  resemblances 
and  defects  in  respect  to  the  realities  of  the  Gospel,  which 
we  have  found  to  belong  to  the  ancient  symbolical  institu- 
tions of  worship;  secondly,  that  such  historical  types  were 
absolutely  necessary,  in  considerable  number  and  variety,  to 
render  the  earlier  dispensations  thoroughly  preparative  in 
respect  to  the  coming  dispensation  of  the  Gospel;  and,  thirdly, 
that  Old  Testament  Scripture  itself  contains  undoubted  indi 
cations,  that  much  of  its  historical  matter  stood  related  to 
some  higher  ideal,  in  which  the  truths  and  relations  exem--. 
plified  in  them  were  again  to  meet  and  receive  a  new  but 
more  perfect  development. 


64  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUBE. 

I.  The  first  consideration  is,  that  the  historical  relations 
and  circumstances  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  typ- 
ically interpreted  in  the  New,  had  very  much  the  same  resem- 
blances and  defects  in  respect  to  the  Gospel  which  we  have 
found  to  belong  to  the  ancient  symbolical  institutions  of 
worship.  Thus — to  refer  to  one  of  the  earliest  events  in 
the  world's  history  so  interpreted — the  general  deluge  that 
destroyed  the  old  world,  and  preserved  Noah  and  his  family 
alive,  is  represented  as  standing  in  a  typical  relation  to  Chris- 
tian baptism.1  It  did  so,  as  will  be  explained  more  at  large 
hereafter,  from  its  having  destroyed  those  who  by  their  cor- 
ruptions destroyed  the  earth,  ana  saved  for  a  new  world  the 
germ  of  a  better  race.  Doing  this  in  the  outward  and  lower 
territory  of  the  world's  history,  it  served  substantially  the 
same  purpose  that  Christian  baptism  does  in  a  higher :  since 
this  is  designed  to  bring  the  individual  that  receives  it  under 
those  vital  influences  that  purge  away  the  corruption  of  a 
fleshly  nature,  and  cause  the  seed  of  a  divine  life  to  take 
root  and  grow  for  the  occupation  of  a  better  inheritance.  In 
like  manner  Sarah,  with  her  child  of  promise,  the  special  and 
peculiar  gift  of  Heaven,  and  Hagar,  with  her  merely  natural 
and  fleshly  offspring,  are  explained  as  typically  foreshadow- 
ing, the  one  a  spiritual  Church,  bringing  forth  real  children 
to  God,  in  spirit  and  destiny  as  well  as  in  calling,  the  heirs  of 
His  everlasting  kingdom;  the  other,  a  worldly  and  corrupt 
Church,  whose  members  are  in  bondage  to  the  flesh,  having 
but  a  name  to  live,  while  they  are  dead.1  In  such  cases,  it  is 
clear  that  the  same  kind  of  resemblances,  coupled  also  with 
the  same  kind  of  differences,  appear  between  the  preparatory 
and  the  final,  as  in  the  case  of  the  symbolical  types.  For 
here  also  the  ideas  and  relations  are  substantially  one  in  the 
two  associated  transactions ;  only  in  the  earlier  they  appear 
ostensibly  connected  with  the  theatre  of  an  earthly  existence, 
and  with  respect  to  seen  and  temporal  results ;  while  in  the 
later  it  is  the  higher  field  of  grace  and  the  interests  of  a 
spiritual  and  immortal  existence  that  come  directly  into 
view. 

Or,  let  the  use  be  considered  that  is  made  of  the  events 
which  befell  the  Israelites  on  their  way  to  the  land  of 
Canaan,  as  regards  the  state  and  prospects  of  the  Church  of 
the  New  Testament  on  its  way  to  heaven.  Look  at  this,  foi 
example,  as  unfolded  in  the  third  and  fourth  chapters  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  the  essential  features  of  a  typ- 
ical connection  will  at  once  be  seen.  For  the  exclusion  of 

« 1  Pet  iii  21.  «  GaL  iv.  22,  3t 


HISTORICAL  TYPES.  65 

those  carnal  and  unbelieving  Israelites  who  fell  in  the  wil- 
derness is  there  exhibited,  not  only  as  affording  a  reasonable 
presumption,  but  as  providing  a  valid  ground,  for  asserting 
that  persons  similarly  affected  now  toward  the  kingdom  of 
glory  can  not  attain  to  heaven.  Indeed,  so  complete  in  point 
of  principle  is  the  identity  of  the  two  cases,  that  the  same  ex- 
pressions are  applied  to  both  alike,  without  intimation  of  any 
differences  existing  between  them:  "the  Gospel  is  preached" 
to  the  one  class  as  well  as  to  the  other ;  God  gives  to  each 
alike  "  a  promise  of  rest,"  while  they  equally  "  fall  through 
unbelief,"  having  hardened  their  hearts  against  the  word  of 
God.  Yet  there  were  the  same  differences  in  kind  as  we 
have  noted  between  the  type  and  the  antitype  in  the  sym- 
bolical institutions  of  worship — the  visible  and  earthly  being 
employed  in  the  one  to  exhibit  such  relations  and  principles 
as  in  the  other  appear  in  immediate  connection  with  what  is 
spiritual  and  heavenly.  In  the  type  we  have  the  prospect 
of  Canaan,  the  Gospel  of  an  earthly  promise  of  rest,  and, 
because  not  believed,  issuing  in  the  loss  of  a  present  life  of 
honor  and  blessing ;  in  the  antitype,  the  prospect  of  a  heavenly 
inheritance,  the  Gospel  promise  of  an  everlasting  rest,  bring- 
ing along  with  it,  when  treated  with  unbelief  and  neglect, 
an  exclusion  from  eternal  blessedness  and  glory. 

Again,  and  with  reference  to  the  same  period  in  the 
Church's  history,  it  is  said  in  John  iii.  14,  15,  "As  Moses 
lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,  so  must  the  Son  of 
man  be  lifted  up,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should 
not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."  The  language  here 
certainly  does  not  necessarily  betoken  by  any  means  so  close 
a  connection  between  the  Old  and  the  New  as  in  the  cases 
previously  referred  to ;  nor  are  we  disposed  to  assert  that  the 
same  connection  in  all  respects  really  existed.  The  historical 
transaction  in  this  case  had  at  first  sight  the  aspect  of  some- 
thing occasional  and  isolated,  rather  than  of  an  integral  and 
essential  part  of  a  great  plan.  And  yet  the  reference  in 
John,  viewed  in  connection  with  other  passages  of  Scripture 
bearing  on  the  subject,  sufficiently  vindicates  for  it  a  place 
among  the  earlier  exhibitions  of  divine  truth,  planned  by  the 
foreseeing  eye  of  God  with  special  respect  to  the  coming  re- 
alities of  the  Gospel.  As  such  it  entirely  accords  in  nature 
with  the  typical  prefigurations  already  noticed.  In  the  two 
related  transactions  there  is  a  fitting  correspondence  as  to  the 
relations  maintained:  in  both  alike  a  wounded  and  dying 
condition  in  the  first  instance;  then  the  elevation  of  an  object 
apparently  inadequate,  yet  really  effectual,  to  accomplish  the 
cure,  and  this  through  no  other  medium  on  the  part  of  the 
TOL.  i. — 5. 


I 

66  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOEIPTUEE. 

affected  than  their  simply  looking  to  the  object  BO  presented 
to  their  view.  But  witn  this  pervading  correspondence,  what 
marked  and  distinctive  characteristics!  In  the  one  case  a 
dying  body,  in  the  other  a  perishing  soul !  There,  an  uplifted 
serpent — of  all  instruments  of  healing  from  a  serpent  s  bite 
the  most  unlikely  to  profit;  here,  the  exhibition  of  one  con- 
demned and  crucified  as  a  malefactor — of  all  conceivable 
persons  apparently  the  most  impotent  to  save.  There,  once 
more,  the  fleshly  eye  of  nature  deriving  from  the  outward 
object  visibly  presented  to  it  the  healing  virtue  it  was  or- 
dained to  impart ;  and  here  the  spiritual  eye  of  the  soul,  look- 
ing in  steadfast  faith  to  the  exalted  Redeemer,  and  getting  the 
needed  supplies  of  His  life-giving  and  regenerating  grace. 
In  both,  the  same  elements  of  truth,  the  same  modes  of  deal- 
ing; but  in  the  one  developing  themselves  on  a  lower,  in  the 
other  on  a  higher  territory:  in  the  former  having  immediate 
respect  only  to  things  seen  and  temporal,  and  in  the  latter  to 
what  is  unseen,  spiritual,  and  eternal.  And  when  it  is  con- 
sidered how  the  divine  procedure  in  the  case  of  the  Israelites 
was  in  itself  so  extraordinary  and  peculiar,  so  unlike  God's 
usual  methods  of  dealing  in  providence,  in  so  far  as  these 
have  respect  merely  to  inferior  and  perishable  interests,  it 
seems  to  be  without  any  adequate  reason — to  want,  in  a 
sense,  its  just  explanation,  until  it  is  viewed  as  a  dispensa- 
tion specially  designed  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  higher 
and  better  things  of  the  Gospel. 

Similar  explanations  might  be  given  of  the  other  histor- 
ical facts  recorded  in  Old  Testament  Scripture,  and  invested 
with  a  typical  reference  in  the  New.  But  enough  has  been 
said  to  show  the  essential  similarity  in  the  respect  borne  by 
them  to  the  better  things  of  the  Gospel,  and  of  that  borne  by 
the  ritual  types  of  the  law.  The  ground  of  the  connection  in 
the  one  class,  precisely  as  in  the  other,  stands  in  the  substan- 
tial oneness  of  the  ideas  and  relations  pervading  the  earlier 
and  the  later  transactions,  as  corresponding  parts  of  related 
dispensations ;  or  in  the  identity  of  truth  and  principle  ap- 
pearing in  both,  as  different  yet  mutually  depending  parts 
of  one  great  providential  scheme.  In  that  internal  agree- 
ment and  relationship,  rather  than  in  any  mere  outward 
resemblances,  we  are  to  seek  the  real  bond  of  connection 
between  the  Old  and  the  New. 

At  first  sight,  perhaps,  a  connection  of  this  nature  may 
appear  to  want  something  of  what  is  required  to  satisfy  the 
conditions  of  a  proper  typical  relationship.  And  there  are 
two  respects  more  especially  in  which  this  deficiency  may 
seem  to  exist. 


HISTOBIOAL  TYPES.  67 

1.  It  has  been  so  much  the  practice  to  look  at  the  connec- 
tion between  the  Old  and  the  New  in  an  external  aspect,  that 
one  naturally  fancies  the  necessity  of  some  more  palpable  and 
arbitrary  bond  of  union  to  link  together  type  and  antitype. 
The  one  is  apt  to  be  thought  of  as  a  kind  of  pre-ordained  pan- 
tomime of  the  other  —  like  those  prefigurative  actions  which 
the  prophets  were  sometimes  instructed,  whether  in  reality 
or  in  vision,  to  perform,1  meaningless  in  themselves,  yet  very 
significant  as  foreshadowing  intimations  of  coming  events  in 
providence.  Such  prophecies  in  action,  certainly,  had  some- 
thing in  common  with  the  typical  transactions  now  under 
consideration.  They  both  alike  had  respect  to  other  actions 
or  events  yet  to  come,  without  which,  pre-ordained  and  fore- 
seen, they  would  not  have  taken  place.  They  both  also  stood 
in  a  similar  relation  of  littleness  to  the  corresponding  circum- 
stances they  foreshadowed  —  exhibiting  on  a  comparatively 
small  scale  what  was  afterwards  to  realize  itself  on  a  large 
one,  and  thereby  enabling  the  mind  more  readily  to  antici- 
pate the  approaching  future,  or  more  distinctly  to  grasp  it 
after  it  had  come.  But  they  differed  in  this,  that  the  typical 
actions  of  the  prophets  had  respect  solely  to  the  coming  trans- 
actions they  prefigured,  and  but  for  these  would  have  been 
foolish  and  absurd  ;  while  the  typical  actions  of  God's  provi- 
dence, as  well  as  the  symbolical  institutions  of  His  worship, 
had  a  moral  meaning  of  their  own,  independently  of  the  ref- 
erence they  bore  to  the  future  revelations  of  the  Gospel.  To 
overlook  this  independent  moral  element,  is  to  leave  out  of 
account  what  should  be  held  to  constitute  the  very  basis  of 
the  connection  between  the  past  and  the  future.  But  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  due  weight  is  allowed  to  that  element,  there 
is  formed  a  connection  which,  in  reality,  is  of  a  much  more 
close  and  vital  nature,  and  one,  too,  of  far  higher  importance 
than  if  it  consisted  alone  in  points  of  outward  resemblance. 
For  it  implies  not  only  that  the  entire  plan  of  salvation  was 
all  along  in  the  eye  of  God,  but  that,  with  a  view  to  it,  He 
was  ever  directing  His  government,  so  as  to  bring  out  in  suc- 
cessive stages  and  operations  the  very  truths  and  principles 
which  were  to  find  in  the  realities  of  the  Gospel  their  more 
complete  manifestation.  He  showed  that  He  saw  the  end 
from  the  beginning,  by  interweaving  with  His  providential 
arrangements  the  elements  of  the  more  perfect,  the  terminal 
plan.  And  therefore,  to  lay  the  groundwork  of  the  connec- 
tion between  the  preparatory  and  the  final  in  the  elements  of 
truth  and  principle  common  alike  to  both,  instead  of  placing 


1  As  Isflifth  in  ch.  xx.,  or  Ezekiel  in  cb.  xii. 


68  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

it  in  merely  formal  resemblances,  is  but  to  withdraw  it 
from  a  less  to  a  more  vital  and  important  part  of  the  transac- 
tions— from  the  outer  shell  and  appearance  to  the  inner  truth 
and  substance  of  the  history ;  so  that  we  can  discern,  not  only 
some  perceptible  coincidences  between  the  type  and  the  anti- 
type, but  the  same  fundamental  character,  the  same  spirit  of 
life,  the  same  moral  import  and  practical  design. 

To  render  this  more  manifest,  as  it  is  a  point  of  considera- 
ble moment  to  our  inquiry,  let  us  compare  an  alleged  exam- 
ple of  historical  type,  where  the  resemblance  between  it  and 
the  supposed  antitype  is  of  an  ostensible,  but  still  only  of  an 
outward  kind,  with  one  of  those  referred  to  above — the  brazen 
serpent  for  example,  or  the  deluge.  In  this  latter  example 
there  was  scarcely  any  outward  resemblance  presented  to  the 
Christian  ordinance  of  baptism;  as  in  no  proper  sense  could 
Noah  and  his  family  be  said  to  have  been  literally  baptized 
in  the  waters.  But  both  this  and  the  other  historical  trans- 
action presented  strong  lines  of  resemblance,  of  a  more  in- 
ward and  substantial  kind,  to  the  things  connected  with  them 
in  the  Gospel — such  as  enable  us  to  recognize  without  diffi- 
culty the  impress  of  one  divine  hand  in  the  two  related  series 
of  transactions,  and  to  contemplate  them  as  corresponding 
parts  of  one  grand  economy,  rising  gradually  from  its  lower 
to  its  higher  stages  of  development.  Take,  however,  as  an 
example  of  the  other  class,  the  occupation  of  Abel  as  a  shep- 
herd, which  by  many — among  others  by  Witsius — has  been 
regarded  as  a  prefiguration  of  Christ  in  His  character  as  the 

freat  Shepherd  of  Israel.  A  superficial  likeness,  we  admit; 
ut  what  is  to  be  found  of  real  unity  and  agreement  ?  What 
light  does  the  one  throw  upon  the  other  ?  What  expectation 
beforehand  could  the  earlier  beget  of  the  later,  or  what  con- 
firmation afterwards  can  it  supply?  Admitting  that  the 
death  of  Abel  somehow  foreshadowed  the  infinitely  more  pre- 
cious blood  to  be  shed  on  Calvary,  what  distinctive  value  could 
the  sacrifice  of  life  in  His  case  derive  from  the  previous  occu- 
pation of  the  martyr  ?  Christ  certainly  died  as  the  spiritual 
shepherd  of  souls,  but  Abel  was  not  murdered  on  account  of 
having  been  a  keeper  of  sheep ;  nor  had  his  death  any  neces- 
sary connection  with  his  having  followed  such  an  employ- 
ment. For  what  purpose,  then,  press  points  of  resemblance 
so  loosely  associated,  and  dignify  them  with  the  name  of  typ- 
ical prefigurations  ?  Resem  blances  in  such  a  case  are  worth- 
less even  if  real,  and  from  their  nature  incapable  of  affording 
any  insight  into  the  mind  and  purposes  of  God.  But  when, 
on  the  contrary,  we  look  into  the  past  records  of  God's  provi- 
dence, and  find  there,  in  the  dealings  of  His  hand  and  the 


HISTORICAL  TYPES.  69 

institutions  of  His  worship,  a  coincidence  of  principle  and 
economical  design  with  what  appears  in  the  dispensation  of 
the  Gospel,  we  can  not  but  feel  that  we  have  something  of 
real  weight  and  importance  for  the  mind  to  rest  upon.  And 
if,  further,  we  have  reason  to  conclude,  not  only  that  agree- 
ments of  this  kind  existed,  but  that  they  were  all  skilfully 
planned  and  arranged, — the  earlier  with  a  view  to  the  later, 
the  earthly  and  temporal  for  the  spiritual  and  heavenly, — we 
find  ourselves  possessed  of  the  essential  elements  of  a  typical 
connection. 

2.  But  granting  what  has  now  been  stated, — allowing  that 
the  connection  between  type  and  antitype  is  more  of  an  in- 
ternal than  of  an  external  kind, — it  may  still  be  objected,  in 
regard  to  the  historical  types,  that  they  wanted  for  the  most 
part  something  of  the  necessary  correspondence  with  the  anti- 
types :  the  one  did  not  occupy  under  the  Old  the  same  relative 
place  that  the  other  did  under  the  New — existing  for  a  time 
as  a  shadow,  until  it  was  superseded  and  displaced  by  the 
substance.  Perhaps  not;  but  is  such  a  close  and  minute  cor- 
respondence absolutely  necessary?  Or  is  it  to  be  found  even 
in  the  case  of  all  the  symbolical  types  ?  With  them  also  con- 
siderable differences  appear;  and  we  look  in  vain  for  any  thing 
like  a  fixed  and  absolute  uniformity.  The  correspondence 
assumed  the  most  exact  form  in  the  sacrificial  rites  of  the 
tabernacle  worship.  There,  certainly,  part  may  be  said  to 
have  answered  to  part :  there  was  priest  lor  priest,  offering  for 
offering,  death  for  death,  and  blessing  for  blessing — through- 
out, an  inferior  and  temporary  substitute  in  the  room  of  the 
proper  reality,  and  continuing  till  it  was  superseded  and 
displaced  by  the  latter.  We  find  a  relaxation,  however,  in 
this  closely  adjusted  relationship,  whenever  we  leave  the  im- 
mediate province  of  sacrifice;  and  in  many  of  the  things 
expressly  denominated  shadows  of  the  Gospel,  it  can  hardly 
be  said  to  have  existed.  In  regard,  for  example,  to  the  ancient 
festivals,  the  new  moons,  the  use  or  disuse  of  leaven,  the  de- 
filement of  leprosy  and  its  purification,  there  was  no  such 
precise  and  definite  superseding  of  the  Old  by  something 
corresponding  under  the  New — nothing  like  office  for  office, 
action  for  action,  part  for  part.  The  symbolical  rites  and 
institutions  referred  to  were  typical — not,  however,  as  repre- 
senting things  that  were  to  hold  specifically  and  palpably 
the  same  place  in  Gospel  times,  but  rather  as  embodying,  in 
set  forms  and  ever-recurring  bodily  services,  the  truths  and 
principles  that,  in  naked  simplicity  and  by  direct  teaching, 
were  to  pervade  the  dispensation  of  the  Gospel. 

There  is  a  quite  similar  diversitv  in  the  case  of  the  histor- 


70  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTURE. 

ical  types.  In  some  of  them  the  correspondence  was  very 
close  and  exact,  in  others  more  loose  and  general  Of  the 
former  class  was  the  calling  of  Israel  as  an  elect  people,  their 
relation  to  the  land  of  Canaan  as  their  covenant  portion,  their 
redemption  from  the  yoke  of  Egypt,  and  their  temporary 
sojourn  in  the  wilderness  as  they  travelled  to  inherit  it — all 
of  which  continued  (the  two  latter  by  means  of  commemora- 
tive ordinances)  till  they  were  superseded  by  corresponding 
but  higher  objects  under  the  Gospel.  In  respect  to  these  we 
can  say,  the  New  dispensation  presents  people  for  people, 
redemption  for  redemption,  inheritance  for  inheritance,  and 
one  kind  of  wilderness  training  for  another;  objects  in  both 
precisely  corresponding  as  regards  the  places  they  respect- 
ively held,  and  the  one  preserving  their  existence  or  trans- 
mitting their  efficacy,  till  they  were  supplanted  by  the  other. 
But  we  do  not  pretend  to  see  the  same  close  connection  and 
the  same  exact  correspondence  between  the  Old  and  the  New 
in  all,  or  even  the  greater  part,  of  the  historical  transactions 
of  the  past,  which  we  hold  to  have  been  typical ;  nor  are  we 
warranted  to  look  for  it.  The  analogy  of  the  symbolical 
types  would  lead  us  to  expect,  along  with  the  more  direct 
typical  arrangements,  many  acts  and  institutions  of  a  some- 
what incidental  and  subordinate  kind,  in  which  a  typical 
representation  should  be  given  of  ideas  and  relations,  that 
could  only  find  in  the  realities  of  the  Gospel  their  full  and 
proper  manifestation.  If  they  were  not  appointed  as  tem- 
porary substitutes  for  these  realities,  and  made  to  occupy 
an  ostensible  place  in  the  divine  economy  till  the  better 
things  appeared,  they  were  still  fashioned  after  the  ideal 
of  the  better,  and  were  thereby  fitted  to  indoctrinate  the 
minds  of  God's  people  with  certain  notions  of  the  truth, 
and  to  familiarize  them  with  its  spiritual  ideas,  its  modes 
of  procedure,  and  principles  of  working.  And  in  this  they 
plainly  possessed  the  more  essential  elements  of  a  typical 
connsction. 

II.  Enough,  however,  for  the  first  point.  We  proceed  to 
the  second,  which  is,  that  such  historical  types  as  tnose  under 
consideration  were  absolutely  necessary,  in  considerable  num- 
ber and  variety,  to  render  the  earlier  dispensations  thoroughly 
preparative  in  respect  to  the  coming  dispensation  of  the  Gos- 
pel. This  was  necessary,  first  of  all,  from  the  typical  charac- 
ter of  the  position  and  worship  of  the  members  of  the  Old 
Covenant.  The  main  things  respecting  them  being,  as  we 
have  seen,  typical,  it  was  inevitable  but  that  many  others  of 
a  subordinate  and  collateral  nature  should  be  the  same ;  for 


mSTOKICAL  TYPES.  71 

otherwise  they  would  not  have  been  suitably  adapted  to  the 
dispensation  to  which  they  belonged. 

But  we  have  something  more  than  this  general  corre- 
spondence or  analogy  to  appeal  to.  For  the  nature  of  the 
historical  types  themselves,  as  already  explained,  implies 
their  existence,  in  considerable  number  and  variety.  The 
representation  they  were  designed  to  give  of  the  fundamen- 
tal truths  and  principles  of  the  Gospel,  with  the  view  of  pre- 
Earing  the  Church  for  the  new  dispensation,  must  necessarily 
ave  been  incomplete  and  inadequate,  unless  it  had  embraced 
a  pretty  extensive  field.  The  object  of  their  appointment 
would  have  been  but  partially  reached,  if  they  had  consisted 
only  of  the  few  straggling  examples  which  have  been  par- 
ticularly mentioned  in  New  Testament  Scripture.  Nor,  unless 
the  history  in  general  of  Old  Testament  times,  in  so  far  as  its 
recorded  transactions  bore  on  them  the  stamp  of  God's  mind 
and  will,  had  been  pervaded  by  the  typical  element,  could  it 
have  in  any  competent  measure  fulfilled  the  design  of  a  pre- 
paratory economy.  So  that  whatever  distinctions  it  may  be 
necessary  to  draw  between  one  part  of  the  transactions  and 
another  as  to  their  being  in  themselves  sometimes  of  a  more 
essential,  sometimes  of  a  more  incidental,  character,  or  in 
their  typical  bearing  being  more  or  less  closely  related  to 
the  realities  of  the  Gospel,  their  very  place  and  object  in  a 
preparatory  dispensation  required  them  to  be  extensively 
typical.  To  be  spread  over  a  large  field,  and  branched  out 
in  many  directions,  was  as  necessary  to  their  typical,  as  to 
their  more  immediate  and  temporary,  design. 

Thus  the  one  point  grows  by  a  sort  of  natural  necessity 
out  of  the  other.  But  the  argument  admits  of  being  consid- 
erably strengthened  by  the  manner  in  which  the  historical 
types  that  are  specially  mentioned  in  New  Testament  Script- 
ure are  there  referred  to.  So  far  from  being  represented  as 
singular  in  their  typical  reference  to  Gospel  times,  they  have 
uniformly  the  appearance  of  being  only  selected  for  the 
occasion.  Nay,  the  obligation  on  the  part  of  believers  gen- 
erally to  seek  for  them  throughout  the  Old  Testament  Script- 
ures, and  apply  them  to  all  the  purposes  of  Christian  instruc- 
tion and  improvement,  is  distinctly  asserted  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews ;  and  the  capacity  to  do  so  is  represented  as  a 
proof  of  full-grown  spiritual  discernment.1  There  is,  there- 
fore, a  sense  in  which  the  saying  of  Augustine,  "The  Old 
Testament,  when  rightly  understood,  is  one  great  prophecy 
of  the  New,"  *  is  strictly  true  even  in  regard  to  those  parts 

i  Heb.  v.  11-14. 

*  Vetus  Testamentnm  recte  intelligeutibus  prophetia  est  Novi  Testament! 


72  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

of  ancient  Scripture  which,  in  their  direct  and  immediate 
bearing,  partake  least  of  the  prophetical.  Its  records  of  the 
past  are  at  the  same  time  pregnant  with  the  germs  of  a 
corresponding  but  more  exalted  future.  The  relations  sus- 
tainea  by  its  more  public  characters,  the  parts  they  were 
appointed  to  act  in  their  day  and  generation,  the  deliverances 
that  were  wrought  for  them  and  oy  them,  and  the  chastise- 
ments they  were  from  time  to  time  given  to  experience,  did 
not  begin  and  terminate  with  themselves.  They  were  parts 
of  an  unfinished  and  progressive  plan,  which  finds  its  destined 
completion  in  the  person  and  kingdom  of  Christ;  and  only 
when  seen  in  this  prospective  reference  do  they  appear  in 
their  proper  magnitude  and  full  significance. 

Christ,  then,  is  the  end  of  the  history  as  well  as  of  the  law 
of  the  Old  Testament.  It  had  been  strange,  indeed,  if  it  were 
otherwise ;  strange  if  its  historical  transactions  had  not  been, 
ordained  by  God  to  bear  a  prospective  reference  to  the  scheme 
of  grace  unfolded  in  the  Gospel  For  what  is  this  scheme 
itself,  in  its  fundamental  character,  but  a  grand  historical  de- 
velopment ?  What  are  the  doctrines  it  teaches,  the  blessings 
it  imparts,  and  the  prospects  it  discloses  of  coming  glory,  but 
the  ripened  fruit  and  issue  of  the  wondrous  facts  it  records  ? 
The  things  which  are  there  written  of  the  incarnation  and 
life,  the  death  and  resurrection,  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  are 
really  the  foundation  on  which  all  rests — the  root  from  which 
every  thing  springs  in  Christianity.  And  shall  it,  then,  be 
imagined,  that  the  earlier  facts  in  the  history  of  related  and 
preparatory  dispensations  did  not  point,  like  so  many  heralds 
and  forerunners,  to  these  unspeakably  greater  ones  to  come  ? 
If  a  prophecy  lay  concealed  in  their  symbolical  rites,  could  it 
fail  to  be  found  also  in  the  historical  transactions  that  were 
often  so  closely  allied  to  these,  and  always  coincident  with 
them  in  purpose  and  design  ?  Assuredly  not.  In  so  far  as 
God  spake  in  the  transactions,  and  gave  discoveries  by  them 
of  His  truth  and  character,  they  pointed  onward  to  the  one 
"  Pattern  Man,"  and  the  terminal  kingdom  of  righteousness 
and  blessing  of  which  He  was  to  be  tlie  head  and  centre. 
Here  only  the  history  of  God's  earlier  dispensations  attained 
its  proper  end,  as  in  it  also  the  history  of  the  world  rose  to 
its  true  greatness  and  glory.1 

(Contra  Fhust.  lib.  xv.  2).  And  again:  Hie  apparatus  veteris  Testament!  in 
generationibus,  factis,  etc.,  parturiebat  esse  venturum  (Ib.  lib.  xix.  81). 

1  Compare  the  remarks  made  by  the  author  in  "Prophecy  viewed  with 
respect  to  its  Distinctive  Nature,"  etc.,  Pt.  i.  ch.  2;  also  what  has  been  said 
here  in  p.  33  sq.  of  the  views  which  have  obtained  currency  in  Germany 
respecting  the  typical  character  of  Old  Testament  history.  Hartmann,  in 
his  Verbinnung  des  Alien  Test,  mit  den  Neuen,  p.  6,  gives  the  following  from 


HISTOBICAL  TYPES.  78 

III  The  thought,  however,  may  not  unnaturally  occur, 
that  if  the  historical  matter  of  the  Old  Testament  possess  as 
much  as  has  been  represented  of  a  typical  character,  some 
plain  indications  of  its  doing  so  should  be  found  in  Old  Tes- 
tament Scripture  itself;  we  should  scarcely  need  to  draw  our 
proof  of  the  existence  and  nature  of  the  historical  types  en- 
tirely from  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament.  It  was  with 
the  view  of  meeting  this  thought  that  our  third  position  was 
laid  down ;  which  is,  that  Old  Testament  Scripture  does  con- 
tain undoubted  marks  and  indications  of  its  historical  person- 
ages and  events  being  related  to  some  higher  ideal,  in,  which 
the  truths  and  relations  exhibited  in  them  were  again  to 
meet,  and  obtain  a  more  perfect  development.  The  proof 
of  this  is  to  be  sought  chiefly  in  the  propnetical  writings  of 
the  Old  Testament,  in  which  the  more  select  instruments  of 
God's  Spirit  gave  expression  to  the  Church's  faith  respecting 
both  the  past  and  the  future  in  His  dispensations.  And  in 
looking  there,  we  find,  not  only  that  an  exalted  personage, 
with  His  work  of  perfect  righteousness,  and  His  kingdom  of 
consummate  bliss  and  glory,  was  seen  to  be  in  prospect,  but 
also  that  the  expectations  cherished  of  what  was  to  be,  took 
very  commonly  the  form  of  a  new  and  higher  exhibition  of 
what  had  already  been.  In  giving  promise  of  the  better 
things  to  come,  prophecy  to  a  large  extent  availed  itself  of 
the  characters  and  events  of  history.  But  it  could  only  do  so 
on  the  twofold  ground,  that  it  perceived  in  these  essentially 
the  same  elements  of  truth  and  principle  which  were  to  ap- 
pear in  the  future;  and  in  that  future  anticipated  a  nobler 
exhibition  of  them  than  had  been  given  in  the  past.  And 
what  was  this  but  to  indicate  their  typical  meaning  and 
design  ?  The  truth  of  the  statement  will  more  fully  appear 

a  German  periodical  on  the  subject  of  Old  Testament  history,  and  its  con- 
nection with  the  Gospel : — "  Must  not  Judaism  be  of  great  moment  to  Chris- 
tianity, since  both  stand  in  brotherly  and  sisterly  relations  to  each  other? 
The  historical  books  of  the  Hebrews  are  also  religious  books;  the  religious 
import  is  involved  in  the  historical.  The  history  of  the  people,  as  a  divine 
leading  and  management  in  respect  to  them,  was  at  the  same  time  a  training 
for  religion,  precisely  as  the  Old  Testament  is  a  preparation  for  the  New." 
Still  more  strongly  Jacobi,  as  quoted  by  Sack,  Apologelik,  p.  356,  on  the 
words  of  Christ,  that  "as  the  serpent  was  lifted  up,  so  must  the  Son  of  man 
be  lifted  up"  (vifjooQ^rat  dei):  "History  is  also  prophecy.  The  past  un- 
folds the  future  as  a  germ,  and  at  certain  points,  discernible  by  the  eye  of 
the  mind,  the  greater  may  be  seen  imaged  in  the  smaller,  the  internal  in 
the  external,  the  present  or  future  in  the  past.  Here  there  is  nothing  what- 
ever arbitrary :  throughout  there  is  a  divine  must — connection  and  arrange- 
ment, pregnant  with  mutual  relations."  More  recently,  Hofmann,  in  his 
Weissagung  und  Erfullung,  as  noticed  in  ch.  i.,  has  run  to  an  extreme  this 
view  of  Old  Testament  history,  and  in  his  desire  to  magnify  the  importance 
of  it  has  depreciated  prophecy — but  really  to  the  disparagement  of  the  pro- 
phetical element  in  both  departments. 


74  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUKE. 

when  we  come  to  treat  of  the  combination  of  type  with 
prophecy,  which,  on  account  of  its  importance,  we  reserve 
for  the  subject  of  a  separate  chapter.  Meanwhile,  it  will  be 
remembered  how  even  Moses  speaks  before  his  death  of  "  the 
prophet  which  the  Lord  their  God  should  raise  up  from  among 
his  orethren  like  to  himself"1 — one  that  should  hold  a  sim- 
ilar position  and  do  a  similar  work,  but  each  in  its  kind  more 
perfect  and  complete — else,  why  look  out  for  another  ?  In 
like  manner,  David  connects  the  historical  appearance  of 
Melchizedek  with  the  future  Head  of  God's  Church  and 
kingdom,  when  He  announces  Him  as  a  priest  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek  ;J  he  foresaw  that  the  relations  of  Mel- 
chizedek's  time  should  be  again  revived  in  this  divine  char 
acter,  and  the  same  part  fulfilled  anew,  but  raised,  as  the 
connection  intimates,  to  a  higher  sphere,  invested  with  a 
heavenly  greatness,  and  carrying  a  world-wide  significance 
and  power.  So  again,  we  are  told,*  another  Elias  should 
arise  in  the  brighter  future,  to  be  succeeded  by  a  more  glo- 
rious manifestation  of  the  Lord,  to  do  what  had  never  been 
done  but  in  fragments  before;  namely,  to  provide  for  Him- 
self a  true  spiritual  priesthood,  a  regenerated  people,  and  an 
offering  of  righteousness.  But  the  richest  proofs  are  fur- 
nished by  the  latter  portion  of  Isaiah's  writings;  for  there 
we  find  the  prophet  intermingling  so  closely  together  the 
past  and  the  future,  that  it  is  often  difficult  to  tell  of  which 
he  actually  speaks.  He  passes  from  Israel  to  the  Messiah, 
and  again  from  the  Messiah  to  Israel,  as  if  the  one  were  but 
a  new,  a  higher  and  nobler  development  of  what  belonged 
to  the  other.  And  the  Church  of  the  future  is  constantly 
represented  under  the  relations  of  the  past,  only  freed  from 
the  imperfections  of  former  times,  and  rendered  in  every  re- 
spect more  blessed  and  glorious. 

Such  are  a  few  specimens  of  the  way  in  which  the  more 
spiritual  and  divinely  enlightened  members  of  the  Old  Cove- 
nant saw  the  future  imaged  in  the  past  or  present.  They 
discerned  the  essential  oneness  in  truth  and  pnnciple  between 
the  two ;  but  at  the  same  time  were  conscious  of  such  inherent 
imperfections  and  defects  adhering  to  the  past,  that  they  felt 
it  required  a  more  perfect  future  to  render  it  altogether  worthy 
of  God,  and  fully  adequate  to  the  wants  and  necessities  of  His 
people.  And  tnere  is  one  entire  book  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  owes  in  a  manner  its  existence,  as  it  now  stands,  to  this 
likeness  in  one  respect,  but  diversity  in  another,  between  the 

1  Dent,  rviii.  18.  Ps.  ex.  4. 

3  Mai.  iii.  I,  iv.  5. 


FULNESS  OF  TYPICAL  MATTER.  75 

past  and  the  future  things  in  God's  administration.  I  refer  to 
the  Book  of  Psalms.  The  pieces  of  which  this  book  consists 
are  in  their  leading  character  devotional  summaries,  express- 
ing the  pious  thoughts  and  feelings  which  the  consideration 
of  God's  ways  and  the  knowledge  of  His  revelations  were 
fitted  to  raise  in  reflecting  and  spiritual  bosoms.  But  the 
singular  thing  is,  that  they  are  this  for  the  New  as  well  as 
for  the  Old  Testament  worshipper.  They  are  still  incompar- 
ably the  most  perfect  expression  of  the  religious  sentiment, 
and  the  best  directory  to  the  soul  in  its  meditations  and  com- 
munings  about  divine  things,  which  is  anywhere  to  be  found. 
There  is  not  a  feature  in  the  divine  character,  nor  an  aspect 
of  any  moment  in  the  life  of  faith,  to  which  expression,  more 
or  less  distinct,  is  not  there  given.  How  could  such  a  book 
have  come  into  existence,  centuries  before  the  Christian  era, 
but  for  the  fact  that  the  Old  and  the  New  dispensations — 
however  they  may  have  differed  in  outward  form,  or  in  the 
ostensible  nature  of  the  transactions  belonging  to  them — 
were  founded  on  the  same  relations,  and  pervaded  by  the 
same  essential  truths  and  principles?  No  otherwise  could 
the  Book  of  Psalms  have  served  as  the  great  handbook  of 
devotion  to  the  members  of  both  covenants.  There  the  dis- 
ciples of  Moses  and  Christ  meet  as  on  common  ground — the 
one  still  readily  and  gratefully  using  the  fervent  utterances 
of  faith  and  hope  which  the  other  had  breathed  forth  ages 
before.  And  though  it  was  comparatively  carnal  institutions 
under  which  the  holy  men  lived  and  worshipped  who  indited 
those  divine  songs;  though  it  was  transactions  bearing  di- 
rectly only  on  their  earthly  and  temporal  condition  which 
formed  the  immediate  ground  and  occasion  of  the  sentiments 
they  uttered;  yet,  where  in  all  Scripture  can  the  believer, 
who  now  "  worships  in  spirit  and  in  truth,"  more  readily  find 
for  himself  the  words  that  shall  fitly  express  his  loftiest  con- 
ceptions of  God,  embody  his  most  spiritual  and  enlarged  views 
of  the  divine  government,  or  tell  forth  the  feelings  and  desires? 
of  his  soul  even  in  many  of  its  most  lively  and  elevated  moods  ? 
But  with  this  manifold  adaptation  to  the  spiritual  thoughts 
and  feelings  of  the  Christian,  there  is  still  a  perceptible  differ- 
ence between  the  Psalms  of  David  and  the  writings  of  the 
New  Testament.  With  all  that  discovers  itself  in  the  Psalms 
of  a  vivid  apprehension  of  God,  and  of  an  habitual  confidence 
in  His  faithfulness  and  love,  one  can  not  fail  to  mark  the 
indications  of  something  like  a  trembling  restraint  and  awe 
upon  the  soul;  it  never  rises  into  the  filial  cry  of  the  Gospel, 
Aoba,  Father.  There  is  a  fitfulness  also  in  its  aspirations,  as 
of  one  dwelling  in  a  dusky  and  changeful  atmosphere.  Con- 


76  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUEE. 

tinually,  indeed,  do  we  see  the  Psalmist  flying,  in  distress  and 
trouble,  under  the  shelter  of  the  Almighty,  and  trusting  in 
His  mercy  for  deliverance  from  the  guilt  of  sin.  Even  in  the 
worst  times  he  still  prays  and  looks  for  redemption.  But  il\& 
redemption  which  dispels  all  fear,  and  satisfies  the  soul  with 
the  highest  good,  he  knew  not,  excepting  as  a  bright  day-star 
glistening  in  the  far-distant  horizon.  It  was  in  his  believ- 
ing apprehensions  a  thing  that  should  one  day  be  realized  by 
the  Church  of  God ;  and  he  could  tell  also  somewhat  of  the 
mighty  and  glorious  personage  destined  in  the  divine  counsels 
to  accomplish  it — of  His  unparalleled  struggles  in  the  cause 
of  righteousness,  and  of  His  final  triumphs,  resulting  in  the 
extension  of  His  kingdom  to  the  farthest  oounds  of  the  earth. 
But  no  more — the  veil  still  hangs ;  expectation  still  waits  and 
longs ;  and  it  is  only  for  the  believer  of  other  times  to  say, 
" Mine  eyes  have  seen  Thy  salvation ; "  "I  have  a  desire  to 
depart,  and  to  be  with  Christ;"  or  again,  *4 Behold,  what  man- 
ner of  love  the  Father  hath  bestowed  upon  us,  that  we  should 
be  called  the  sons  of  God;  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what 
we  shall  be,  but  we  know,  that  when  He  appears,  we  shall  be 
like  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is." 

Such  is  the  agreement,  and  such  also  the  difference,  be- 
tween the  Old  and  the  New.  "  There  we  see  the  promise  and 
prelude  of  the  blessings  of  salvation;  here,  these  blessings 
themselves,  far  surpassing  all  the  previous  foreshadowings 
of  them.  There,  a  fiducial  resting  in  Jehovah;  here,  an 
unspeakable  fulness  of  spiritual  and  heavenly  blessings  from 
the  opened  fountain  of  His  mercy.  There,  a  confidence  that 
the  Lord  would  not  abandon  His  people;  here,  the  Lord 
Himself  assuming  their  nature,  the  God-man  connecting  Him- 
self in  organic  union  with  humanity,  and  sending  forth 
streams  of  life  through  its  members.  There,  in  the  back- 
ground, night,  only  relieved  by  the  stars  of  the  word  of 
promise,  and  operations  of  grace  in  suitable  accordance  with 
it;  here,  in  the  background,  day,  still  clouded,  indeed,  by 
our  human  nature,  which  is  not  yet  completely  penetrated 
by  the  Spirit,  and  is  ever  anew  manifesting  its  sinfulness,  but 
yet  such  a  day  as  gives  assurance  of  the  cloudless  sunshine 
of  eternity,  of  which  God  Himself  is  the  light."  ' 

We  here  conclude  the  direct  proof  of  our  argument  for 
the  typical  character  of  the  religion  and  history  of  the  Old 
Testament;  but  it  admits  of  confirmation  from  two  distinct 
though  related  lines  of  thought, — the  one  analogical,  derived 
from  the  existence  of  typical  forms  in  physical  nature,  coupled 

>  Delitzsch,  Biblisch-prophctische  Theologie,  p.  232. 


FULNESS  OF  TYPICAL  MATTER  77 

with  the  evidences  of  a  progression  in  the  divine  mode  of 
realizing  them;  the  other  founded  inferentially  on  what 
might  seem  requisite  to  render  the  progression,  apparent  in 
the  spiritual  economy,  an  effective  growth  towards  "  the  dis- 
pensation of  the  fulness  of  times."  With  a  few  remarks  on 
each  of  these,  we  shall  close  this  branch  of  our  inquiry. 

1.  The  subject  of  typical  forms  in  nature  has  only  of  lato 
risen  into  prominence,  and  taken  its  place  in  scientific  inves- 
tigations. It  had  the  misfortune  to  be  first  distinctly  broached 
by  men  who  were  more  distinguished  for  their  powers  of  fancy 
and  their  bold  spirit  of  speculation,  than  for  patient  and  labo- 
rious inquiry  in  any  particular  department  of  science ;  so  that 
their  peculiar  ideas  respecting  a  harmony  of  structure  run- 
ning through  the  organic  kingdoms,  and  bearing  relation  to 
a  pattern-form  or  type,  were  for  a  time  treated  with  contempt, 
or  met  with  decided  opposition.  But  further  research  has 
turned  the  scale  in  their  favor:  the  ideas  in  question  may 
now  be  reckoned  among  the  established  conclusions  of  nat- 
ural science ;  and  so  far  from  occasioning  any  just  prejudice 
to  the  interests  of  a  rational  deism  (as  was  once  supposed), 
they  have  turned  rather  to  its  advantage.  For,  in  addition 
to  the  evidences  of  design  in  nature,  which  show  a  specific 
direction  toward  a  final  cause  (and  which  remain  untouched), 
there  have  been  brought  to  light  evidences,  not  previously 
observed,  of  a  striking  unity  of  plan.  The  general  principle 
has  been  made  good,  that  in  organic  structures,  while  there 
is  an  infinite  vanety  of  parts,  each  with  its  specific  functions 
and  adaptations,  there  is  also  a  normal  shape,  which  it  more 
or  less  approaches,  both  in  its  construction  as  a  whole,  and  in 
each  of  its  organs.  Thus,  in  plants  which  have  leaves  that 
strike  the  eye,  the  leaf  and  plant  are  typically  analogous :  the 
leaf  is  a  typical  plant  or  branch,  and  the  tree  or  oranch  a 
typical  leaf,  with  certain  divergencies  or  modifications  nec- 
essary to  adapt  them  to  their  respective  places.  In  the  ani- 
mal kingdom  the  structural  harmony  is  not  less  perceptible, 
and  still  more  to  our  purpose.  It  has  been  found  by  a  wide 
and  satisfactory  induction,  that  the  human  is  here  the  pattern- 
form — the  archetype  of  the  vertebrate  division  of  animated 
being.  In  the  structure  of  all  other  animal  forms  there  are 
observable  striking  resemblances  to  that  of  man,  and  resem- 
blances of  a  kind  that  seem  designed  to  assimilate  the  lower, 
as  near  as  circumstances  would  admit,  to  the  higher.  In  all 
vertebrate  animals  it  is  found  that  the  vertebrate  skeleton  is 
composed  of  a  series  of  parts  of  essentially  the  same  order, 
only  modified  in  a  great  variety  of  ways  to  suit  the  particular 
functions  it  has  to  discharge  in  the  different  animal  frames 


78  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUKE. 

to  which  it  belongs.  Thus,  every  segment,  and  almost  every 
bone,  present  in  the  human  hand  and  arm,  exist  also  in  the 
fin  of  the  whale,  though  apparently  not  required  for  the  move- 
ment of  this  inflexible  paddle,  and  the  specific  uses  for  which 
it  is  designed;  apparently,  therefore,  retained  for  the  sake  of 
symmetry,  than  from  any  necessity  connected  with  the  proper 
function  of  the  organ.1  Most  strikingly,  however,  does  the 
studied  conformity  to  the  human  archetype  appear  in  the 
formation  of  the  Drain,  which  is  the  most  peculiar  and  dis- 
tinguishing part  of  the  animal  frame.  "  Nature,"  savs  Hugh 
Miller,  "  in  constructing  this  curious  organ  in  man,  nrst  lays 
down  a  grooved  cord,  as  the  carpenter  lays  down  the  keel  of 
his  vessel ;  and  on  this  narrow  base  the  perfect  brain,  as  month 
after  month  passes  by,  is  gradually  built  up,  like  the  vessel 
from  the  keel.  First  it  grows  up  into  a  brain  closely  resem- 
bling that  of  a  fish ;  a  few  additions  more  impart  the  perfect 
appearance  of  the  brain  of  a  bird;  it  then  develops  into  a 
brain  exceedingly  like  that  of  a  mammiferous  quadruped; 
and  finally,  expanding  atop,  and  spreading  out  its  deeply 
corrugated  lobes,  till  they  project  widely  over  the  base,  it 
assumes  its  unique  character  as  a  human  brain.  Radically 
such  at  the  first,  it  passes  through  all  the  inferior  forms,  from 
that  of  the  fish  upwards,  as  if  each  man  were  in  himself,  not 
the  microcosm  of  the  old  fanciful  philosopher,  but  something 
greatly  more  wonderful — a  compendium  of  all  animated  na- 
ture, and  of  kin  to  every  creature  that  lives.  Hence  the 
remark,  that  man  is  the  sum-total  of  all  animals — '  the  ani- 
mal equivalent,'  says  Oken,  'to  the  whole  animal  kingdom.'"* 
This,  however,  is  not  the  whole.  For,  as  geology  has  now 
learned  to  read  with  sufficient  accuracy  the  stony  records  of 
the  past,  to  be  able  to  tell  of  successive  creations  of  verte- 
brate animals,  from  fish,  the  first  and  lowest,  up  to  man,  the 
last  and  highest ;  so  here  also  we  have  a  kind  of  typical  his- 
tory— the  less  perfect  animal  productions  of  nature  having 
throughout  those  earlier  geological  periods  borne  a  prospect- 
ive reference  to  man,  as  the  complete  and  ultimate  form  of 
animal  existence.  In  the  language  of  theology,  they  were 
the  types,  and  he  is  the  antitype,  in  the  mundane  system. 
Or,  as  more  fully  explained  by  Professor  Owen,  "All  the 
parts  and  organs  of  man  had  been  sketched  out  in  anticipa- 
tion, so  to  speak,  in  the  inferior  animals ;  and  the  recognition 

1  It  is  right  to  say,  only  apparently  retained,  though  not  strictly  required 
for,  as  Dr.  M'Cosh  has  justly  stated,  there  may  still  be  uses  and  designs  con- 
nected with  arrangements  of  the  kind  which  science  has  not  discovered;  and 
the  respect  to  symmetry  may  be  but  an  incidental  and  subordinate,  not  the 
primary  or  sole  reason.  See  Typical  Forms,  p.  449. 

*  Footprints,  p.  291. 


FULNESS  OF  TYPICAL  MATTER  79 

of  an  ideal  exemplar  in  the  vertebrated  animals  proves  that 
the  knowledge  of  such  a  being  as  man  must  have  existed 
before  man  appeared.  For  the  divine  mind  which  planned 
the  archetype,  also  foreknew  all  its  modifications.  The  ar- 
chetypal idea  was  manifested  in  the  flesh  long  prior  to  the 
existence  of  those  animal  species  that  actually  exemplify  it. 
To  what  natural  laws  or  secondary  causes  the  orderly  suc- 
cession and  progression  of  such  organic  phenomena  may  have 
been  committed,  we  are  as  yet  ignorant.  But  if,  without 
derogation  of  the  divine  power,  we  may  conceive  the  exist- 
ence of  such  ministers,  and  personify  them  by  the  term  NA- 
TURE, we  learn  from  the  past  history  of  our  globe,  that  she 
has  advanced  with  slow  and  stately  steps,  guided  by  the  ar- 
chetypal light  amidst  the  wreck  of  worlds,  from  the  first 
embodiment  of  the  vertebrate  idea  under  its  old  ichthyic 
vestment,  until  it  became  arrayed  in  the  glorious  garb  of  the 
human  form."1 

In  this  view  of  the  matter,  what  a  striking^  analogy  does 
the  history  of  God's  operations  in  nature  furnish  to  His  plan 
in  providence,  as  exhibited  in  the  history  of  redemption ! 
Here,  in  like  manner,  there  is  found  in  the  person  and  king- 
dom of  Christ  a  grand  archetypal  idea,  towards  which,  for 
successive  ages,  the  divine  plan  was  continually  working. 
Partial  exhibitions  of  it  appear  from  time  to  time  in  certain 
remarkable  personages,  institutions,  and  events,  which  rise 
prominently  into  view  as  the  course  of  providence  proceeds, 
but  all  marred  with  obvious  faults  and  imperfections  in  re- 
spect to  the  great  object  contemplated;  until  at  length  the 

1  It  is  curious  to  notice  that  considerably  before  the  progress  of  physical 
science  had  enabled  its  cultivators  to  draw  this  deduction  from  the  lower  to 
the  higher  forms  of  organic  being,  the  same  line  of  thought  had  suggested 
itself  to  the  inventive  mind  of  Coleridge  from  a  thoughtful  meditation  of  the 
successive  stages  of  creation  as  described  in  Genesis,  viewed  in  the  light  of 
progressive  developments  in  the  mental  as  well  as  material  world.  The  pas- 
sage as  a  whole  is  singularly  characteristic  of  its  distinguished  author;  but 
the  part  we  have  properly  to  do  with  is  the  following:  "Let  us  carry  our- 
selves back  in  spirit  to  the  mysterious  week,  the  teeming  work-days  of  the 
Creator;  as  they  rose  in  vision  before  the  eye  of  the  inspired  historian  of 
"the  generations  of  the  heavens  and  of  the  earth,  in  the  day  that  the  Lord 
God  made  the  earth  and  the  heavens."  And  who  that  hath  watched  their 
ways  with  an  understanding  heart,  could,  as  the  vision  evolving  still  ad- 
vanced toward  him,  contemplate  the  filial  and  loyal  Bee ;  the  home-building, 
wedded,  and  divorceless  Swallow;  and,  above  all,  the  manifoldly  intelligent 
Ant  tribes,  with  their  commonwealths  and  confederacies,  their  warriors  and 
miners,  the  husband-folk  that  fold  in  their  tiny  flocks  on  the  honeyed  leaf, 
and  the  virgin  sisters  with  the  holy  instincts  of  maternal  love,  detached  and 
in  selfless  purity— and  not  say  to  himself,  Behold  the  shadow  of  approach- 
ing humanity,  the  sun  rising  from  behind,  in  the  kindling  morn  of  creation  ! 
Thus  all  lower  natures  find  their  highest  good  in  semblances  and  seekings  of 
that  which  is  higher  and  better." — Aids  to  Reflection,  i.  p.  85. 


80  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUEE. 

idea,  in  its  entire  length  and  breadth,  is  seen  embodied  in 
Him  to  whom  all  the  prophets  gave  witness — the  God-man, 
fore-ordained  before  the  foundation  of  the  world.  "The  Creator 
— to  adopt  again  the  exposition  of  Mr.  Miller — in  the  first 
ages  of  His  workings,  appears  to  have  been  associated  with 
wnat  He  wrought  simply  as  the  producer  or  author  of  all 
things.  But  even  in  those  ages,  as  scene  after  scene,  and 
one  dynasty  of  the  inferior  animals  succeeded  another,  there 
were  strange  typical  indications,  which  pre-Adamite  students 
of  prophecy  among  the  spiritual  existences  of  the  universe 
might  possibly  have  aspired  to  read ;  symbolical  indications, 
to  the  effect  that  the  Creator  was  in  the  future  to  be  more 
intimately  connected  with  His  material  works  than  in  the 
past,  through  a  glorious  creature  made  in  His  own  image 
and  likeness.  And  to  this  semblance  and  portraiture  of  the 
Deity — the  first  Adam — all  the  merely  natural  symbols  seem 
to  refer.  But  in  the  eternal  decrees  it  had  been  forever  deter- 
mined that  the  union  of  the  Creator  with  creation  was  not  to 
be  a  mere  union  by  proxy  or  semblance.  And  no  sooner  had 
the  first  Adam  appeared  and  fallen,  than  a  new  school  of 
prophecy  began,  in  which  type  and  symbol  were  mingled 
with  what  had  now  its  first  existence  on  earth — verbal  enun- 
ciations ;  and  all  pointed  to  the  second  Adam,  '  the  Lord  from 
heaven.'  In  Him,  creation  and  the  Creator  meet  in  reality, 
and  not  in  semblance.  On  the  very  apex  of  the  finished  pyra- 
mid of  being  sits  the  adorable  Monarch  of  all : — as  the  son  of 
Mary,  of  David,  of  the  first  Adam — the  created  of  God;  as 
God  and  the  Son  of  man — the  eternal  Creator  of  the  universe. 
And  these — the  two  Adams — form  the  main  theme  of  all 
prophecy,  natural  and  revealed.  And  that  type  and  symbol 
should  have  been  employed  with  reference  not  only  to  the 
second,  but — as  held  by  men  like  Agassiz  and  Owen — to 
the  first  Adam  also,  exemplifies,  we  are  disposed  to  think, 
the  unity  of  the  style  of  Deity,  and  serves  to  show  that  it 
was  He  who  created  the  worlds  that  dictated  the  Scriptures."1 
It  is  indeed  a  marvellous  similitude,  and  one,  it  will  be  per- 
ceived, which  is  not  less  fitted  to  stimulate  the  aspirations 
of  hope  toward  the  future,  than  to  strengthen  faith  in  what 
the  Bible  relates  concerning  the  history  of  the  past.  For, 
if  the  archetypal  idea  in  animated  nature  has  been  wrought 
at  through  long  periods  and  successive  ages  of  being  till  it 
found  its  proper  realization  in  man ;  now  that  the  nature  of 
man  is  linked  in  personal  union  with  the  Godhead  for  the 
purpose  of  rectifying  what  is  evil,  and  raising  manhood  to  a 


FULNESS  OF  TYPICAL  MATTER  81 

higher  than  its  original  condition,  who  can  tell  to  what  a 
height  of  perfection  and  glory  it  shall  attain,  when  the  work 
of  God  "in  the  regeneration '  has  fully  accomplished  its  aim? 
"  We  know  not  what  we  shall  be,  but  we  know  that  we  shall 
be  like  Him,"  in  whom  the  earthly  and  human  have  been 
forever  associated  with,  and  assimilated  to  the  spiritual  and 
divine.  But  the  parallel  between  the  method  of  God's  work- 
ing in  nature,  and  that  pursued  by  Him  in  grace,  especially 
as  presented  in  the  above  graphic  extract,  naturally  raises 
the  question  (to  which  reference  has  already  been  made, 
p.  40),  whether  or  how  far  the  creation,  as  constituted  and 
headed  in  Adam,  is  to  be  regarded  as  typical  of  the  incarna- 
tion and  kingdom  of  Christ?  As  the  question  is  one  that 
can  not  be  quite  easily  disposed  of,  while  still  it  has  a  very 
material  bearing  on  our  future  investigations,  we  must  re- 
serve it  for  separate  discussion.1 

2.  If  now  we  turn  from  God's  plan  in  nature  to  His  plan 
in  grace,  and  think  of  the  conditions  that  were  required  to 
meet  in  it,  in  order  to  render  the  progression  here  also  exhib- 
ited fitly  conducive  to  its  great  end,  we  shall  find  a  still  fur- 
ther confirmation  of  our  argument  for  the  place  and  charac- 
ter of  Scripture  Typology.  This  plan,  viewed  with  respect 
to  its  progressive  character,  certainly  presents  something 
strange  and  mysterious  to  our  view,  especially  in  the  ex- 
treme slowness  of  its  progression ;  since  it  required  the  post- 
ponement of  the  work  of  redemption  for  so  many  ages,  and 
kept  the  Church  during  these  in  a  state  of  comparative  igno- 
rance in  respect  to  the  great  objects  of  her  faith  and  hope. 
Yet  what  is  it  but  an  application  to  the  moral  history  of  the 
world  of  the  principle  on  which  its  physical  development  has 
proceeded,  and  which,  indeed,  is  constantly  exhibited  before 
us  in  each  man's  personal  history,  whose  term  of  probation 
upon  earth  is,  in  many  cases  half,  in  nearly  all  a  third  part 
consumed,  before  the  individual  attains  to  a  capacity  for  the 
objects  and  employments  of  manhood?  Constituted  as  we 
personally  are,  and  as  the  world  also  is,  progression  of  some 
kind  is  indispensable  to  happiness  and  well-being;  and  the 
majestic  slowness  that  appears  in  the  plan  of  God's  adminis- 
tration of  the  world,  is  but  a  reflection  of  the  nature  of  its 
Divine  Author,  with  whom  a  thousand  years  are  as  one  day. 
Starting,  then,  with  the  assumption  that  the  divine  plan 
behoved  to  be  of  a  progressive  character,  the  nature  of  the 
connection  we  have  found  to  exist  between  its  earlier  and 
later  parts,  discovers  the  perfect  wisdom  and  foresight  of 

1  See  nert  chapter. 
VOL.  i. — 6. 


82  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUBE. 

God.  The  terminating  point  in  the  plan  was  what  is  called 
emphatically  "  the  mystery  of  godliness," — God  manifest  in 
the  flesh  for  the  redemption  of  a  fallen  world,  and  the  estab- 
lishment through  Him  of  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  that 
should  not  pass  away.  It  was  necessary  that  some  intima- 
tion of  this  ulterior  design  should  be  given  from  the  first,  that 
the  Church  might  know  whither  to  direct  her  expectations. 
Accordingly,  the  prophetic  Word  began  to  utter  its  predic- 
tions with  the  very  entrance  of  sin.  The  first  promise  was 
given  on  the  spot  that  witnessed  the  fall ;  and  that  a  promise 
which  contained,  within  its  brief  but  pregnant  utterance,  the 
whole  burden  of  redemption.  As  time  rolled  on,  prophecy 
continued  to  add  to  its  communications,  having  still  lor  its 
grand  scope  and  aim  "the  testimony  of  Jesus."  And  at 
length  so  express  had  its  tidings  become,  and  so  plentiful  its 
revelations,  that  when  the  purpose  of  the  Father  drew  near 
to  its  accomplishment,  the  remnant  of  sincere  worshippers 
were  like  men  standing  on  their  watch-towers,  waiting  and 
looking  for  the  long-expected  consolation  of  Israel ;  nor  was 
there  any  thing  of  moment  in  the  personal  history  or  work 
of  the  Son,  of  which  it  could  not  be  written,  It  was  so  done, 
that  the  Scriptures  might  be  fulfilled. 

It  is  plain,  Jiowever,  on  a  little  consideration,  that  something 
more  was  needed  than  the  hopeful  announcements  of  proph- 
ecy. The  Church  required  training  as  well  as  teaching,  and 
training  of  a  very  peculiar  kind ;  for  she  had  to  be  formed  for 
receiving  things  "  which  men  had  not  heard,  nor  had  the  ear 
perceived,  neither  had  the  eye  seen — the  things  which  God 
nad  prepared  for  those  that  waited  for  him." *  "  The  new  dis- 
pensation was  to  be  wholly  made  up  of  things  strange  and 
wonderful ;  all  that  is  seen  and  heard  of  it  is  contrary  to  car- 
nal wisdom.  The  appearance  of  the  Son  of  God  in  a  humble 
condition — the  discharge  by  Him  in  person  of  a  Gospel  min- 
istry, with  its  attendant  circumstances — His  shame  and  suf- 
ferings— His  resurrection  and  ascension  into  heaven — the 
nature  of  the  kingdom  instituted  by  Him,  which  is  spiritual 
— the  blessings  of  His  kingdom,  which  are  also  spiritual — the 
instruments  employed  for  advancing  the  kingdom,  men  de- 
void of  worldly  learning,  and  destitute  of  outward  authority 
—the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles,  the  re- 
jection of  so  many  among  the  Jewish  people ; — these,  among 
other  things,  were  indeed  such  as  the  carnal  eye  had  never 
seen,  and  the  carnal  ear  had  never  heard;  nor  could  they, 
without  express  revelation,  by  any  thought  or  natural  inge- 
nuity on  the  part  of  man,  have  been  foreseen  or  understood." J 
1  Isa.  IrLv.  4.  «  Vitringa  on  Isa.  bdv.  4. 


FULNESS  OF  TYPICAL  MATTER.  88 

But  lying  thus  so  far  beyond  the  ken  of  man's  natural  appre- 
hensions, and  so  different  from  what  they  were  disposed  of 
themselves  to  expect,  if  all  that  was  done  beforehand  respect- 
ing them  had  consisted  in  the  necessarily  partial  and  obscure 
intimations  of  prophecy,  there  could  neither  have  been  any 
just  anticipation  of  the  things  to  be  revealed,  nor  any  suit- 
able training  for  them ;  the  change  from  the  past  to  the  fu- 
ture must  have  come  as  an  invasion,  rather  than  as  the  result 
of  an  ever-advancing  development,  and  men  could  only  have 
been  brought  by  a  sort  of  violence  to  submit  to  it. 

To  provide  against  this,  there  was  required,  as  a  proper 
accompaniment  to  the  intimations  of  prophecy,  the  training  of 
preparatory  dispensations,  that  the  past  history  and  established 
experience  of  the  Church  might  run,  though  on  a  lower  level, 
yet  in  the  same  direction  with  her  future  prospects.  And 
what  her  circumstances  in  this  respect  required,  the  wisdom 
and  foresight  of  God  provided.  He  so  skilfully  modelled  for 
her  the  institutions  of  worship,  and  so  wisely  arranged  the 
dealings  of  His  providence,  that  there  was  constantly  pre- 
sented to  her  view,  in  the  outward  and  earthly  things  with 
which  she  was  conversant,  the  cardinal  truths  and  principles 
of  the  coming  dispensation.  In  every  thing  she  saw  and 
handled,  there  was  something  to  attemper  her  spirit  to  a 
measure  of  conformity  with  the  realities  of  the  Gospel ;  so 
that  if  she  could  not  be  said  to  live  directly  under  "the  powers 
of  the  world  to  come,"  she  yet  shared  their  secondary  influ- 
ence, being  placed  amid  the  signs  and  shadows  of  the  true, 
and  conducted  through  earthly  transactions,  that  bore  on 
them  the  image  of  the  heavenly. 

It  is  to  this  preparatory  training,  as  having  now  become 
sufficiently  protracted  and  complete,  that  we  are  to  regard  the 
apostle  as  chiefly  referring,  when  he  speaks  -of  Christ  having 
appeared,  "  when  the  fulness  of  the  time  was  come." l  Chiefly, 
though  not  by  any  means  exclusively.  For  there  is  a  mani- 
fold wisdom  in  all  God's  arrangements.  In  the  moral  as  well 
as  in  the  physical  world  He  is  ever  making  numerous  opera- 
tions conspire  to  the  production  of  one  result,  as  each  result 
is  again  made  to  contribute  to  several  important  ends.  It  is, 
therefore,  a  most  legitimate  object  of  inquiry,  to  search  for  all 
the  lines  of  congruity  to  be  seen  in  the  world's  condition,  that 
opportunely  met  at  the  time  of  Christ's  appearing,  and  to- 

f ether  rendered  it  in  an  especial  manner  suited  for  the  ful- 
Iment  of  His  ministry  and  the  institution  of  His  kingdom. 
But  whatever  light  may  be  gathered  from  these  external 

'  Gal.  iv.  4. 


84  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

researches,  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  God's  own  record 
must  furnish  the  main  grounds  for  determining  the  special 
fitness  of  the  selected  time,  and  the  state  of  His  Church  the 
paramount  reason.  In  every  thing  that  essentially  affects 
the  interests  of  the  Church,  pre-eminently  therefore  in  what 
concerns  the  manifestation  of  Christ,  which  is  the  centre  point 
of  all  that  touches  her  interests,  the  state  and  condition  of  the 
Church  herself  is  ever  the  first  thing  contemplated  by  the 
eye  of  God ;  the  rest  of  the  world  holds  but  a  secondary  and 
subordinate  place.  Hence,  when  we  are  told  that  Christ  ap- 
peared in  the  fulness  of  time,  the  fact  of  which  we  are  mainly 
assured  is,  that  all  was  done  which  was  properly  required  for 
bringing  the  Church,  whether  as  to  her  internal  state  or  to 
her  relations  to  the  world,  into  a  measure  of  preparedness  for 
the  time  of  His  appearing.  Not  only  had  the  period  antici- 
pated by  prophecy  arrived,  and  believing  expectation,  rising 
on  the  wings  of  prophecy,  reached  its  proper  height,  but  also 
the  long  series  of  preliminary  arrangements  and  dealings 
was  now  complete,  which  were  designed  to  make  the  Church 
familiar  with  the  fundamental  truths  and  principles  of  Mes- 
siah's kingdom,  and  prepare  her  for  the  introduction  of  this 
kingdom  with  its  divine  realities  and  prospects  of  coming 
glory. 

It  is  true  that  we  search  in  vain  for  the  general  and  wide- 
spread success  which  we  might  naturally  expect  to  have 
attended  the  plan  of  God,  and  to  have  made  conspicuously 
manifest  its  infinite  wisdom.  With  the  exception  of  a  com- 
paratively small  number,  the  professing  Church  was  found  so 
completely  unprepared  for  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  kingdom, 
as  to  reject  it  with  disdain,  and  oppose  it  with  unrelenting 
violence.  But  this  neither  proves  the  absence  of  the  design, 
nor  the  unfitness  of  the  means  for  carrying  it  into  effect.  It 
only  proves  how  insufficient  the  best  means  are  of  themselves 
to  enlighten  and  sanctify  the  human  soul,  when  its  thoughts 
and  imaginations  have  become  fixed  in  a  wrong  direction — 
proves  how  the  heart  may  remain  essentially  corrupt,  even 
after  undergoing  the  most  perfect  course  of  instruction,  and 
may  still  prefer  the  worse  to  the  better  part.  But  while  we 
can  not  overlook  the  fatal  ignorance  and  perversity  that  per- 
vaded the  mass  of  the  Jewish  people,  we  are  not  to  forget 
that  there  still  was  among  them  a  pious  remnant,  "the  election 
according  to  grace,"  who,  as  the  Church  in  the  world,  so  they 
in  the  Church  ever  occupy  the  foremost  place  in  the  mind 
and  purposes  of  God.  In  the  bosom  of  the  Jewish  CLurch, 
as  is  justly  remarked  by  Thiersch,  "  there  lay  a  domestic  life 
BO  pure,  noble,  and  tender,  that  it  coald  yield  such  a  person 


THE  FULNESS  OF  TIME.  86 

as  the  holy  Virgin,"  and  could  furnish  an  atmosphere  in 
which  the  Son  of  God  might  grow  up  sinless  from  childhood 
to  manhood.  There  were  Simeon  and  Anna,  Zacharias  and 
Elisabeth,  Mary  and  Joseph,  the  company  of  apostles,  the 
converts,  no  small  number  after  all,  who  nocked  to  the  stand- 
ard of  Jesus,  as  soon  as  the  truths  of  His  salvation  came 
to  be  fully  known  and  understood,  and  the  believing  Jews 
and  proselytes  scattered  abroad,  who,  in  almost  every  city, 
were  ready  to  form  the  nucleus  of  a  Christian  Church,  and 
greatly  facilitated  its  extension  in  the  world.  Did  not  the 
course  of  God's  preparatory  dispensations  reach  its  end  in 
regard  to  these  ?  Does  not  even  the  style  of  argument  and 
address  used  by  the  apostles  imply  that  it  did?  How  much 
do  both  their  language  and  their  ideas  savor  of  the  sanc- 
tuary !  How  constantly  do  they  throw  themselves  back  for 
illustration  and  support,  not  only  on  the  prophecies,  but  also 
on  the  sacred  annals  and  institutions  of  the  Old  Testament ! 
They  spake  and  reasoned  on  thet  assumption,  that  the  revela- 
tions of  the  Gospel  were  but  a  new  and  higher  exhibition  of 
the  principles  which  appeared  alike  in  the  events  of  their 
past  history  and  the  services  of  their  religious  worship.  By 
means  of  these  an  appropriate  language  was  already  fur- 
nished to  their  hand,  through  which  they  could  discourse 
aright  of  spiritual  and  divine  things.  But  more  than  that, 
as  they  had  no  new  language  to  invent,  so  they  had  no  new 
ideas  to  discover,  or  unheard-of  principles  to  promulgate. 
The  scheme  of  truth  which  they  were  called  to  expound  and 
propagate,  had  its  foundations  already  laid  in  the  whole 
history  and  constitution  of  the  Jewish  commonwealth.  In 
laboring  to  establish  it,  they  felt  that  they  were  treading  in 
the  footsteps,  and,  on  a  higher  vantage-ground,  maintaining 
the  faith  of  their  illustrious  fathers.  In  short,  they  appear 
as  the  heralds  and  advocates  of  a  cause  which,  in  its  essential 
principles,  had  its  representation  in  all  history,  and  gathered 
as  into  one  glorious  orb  of  truth  the  scattered  rays  of  light 
and  consolation  which  had  been  emanating  from  the  ways 
of  God  since  the  world  began.  Thus  wiselv  were  the  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  divine  plan  adjusted  to  eacn  other ;  and,  for 
the  accomplishment  of  what  was  required,  the  training  by 
means  of  types  could  no  more  have  been  dispensed  with, 
than  the  glimpse-like  visions  and  hopeful  intimations  of 
prophecy. 


CHAPTER  FOURTH. 

THE  PROPER  NATURE  AND  PROVINCE  OP  TYPOLOGY — in.  GOD*S  WORK  IN 
CREATION,  HOW  RELATED  TO  THE  INCARNATION  AND  KINGDOM  OF 
CHRIST. 

THE  analogy  presented  near  the  close  of  the  preceding 
chapter — in  an  extract  from  Hugh  Miller1 — between  pre- 
Adaraite  formations  in  the  animal  kingdom,  rising  succes- 
sively above  each  other,  and  those  subsequent  arrangements 
in  the  religious  sphere  which  were  intended  to  herald  and 
prepare  for  the  personal  appearance  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
is  stated  with  becoming  caution  and  reserve.  It  keeps  strictly 
within  the  limits  of  revelation,  and  assumes  the  existence  of 
nothing  in  the  work  of  creation  itself,  with  respect  to  typical 
forms  or  otherwise,  suoh  as  could,  even  to  the  most  profound 
intelligences  of  the  universe,  have  suggested  the  idea  of  a 
further  and  more  complete  manifestation  of  God  in  connec- 
tion with  humanity.  The  commencement  of  the  new  school 
of  prophecy,  allying  itself  to  type  and  symbol  of  another  kind 
than  Had  yet  appeared,  is  dated  from  the  era  of  Adam's  fall, 
as  that  which  at  once  furnished  the  occasion  and  opened  the 
way  for  their  employment ;  while  still,  in  the  mind  of  Deity 
itself,  or  "  in  the  eternal  decrees,"  as  it  is  expressed  in  the 
extract,  it  had  been  forever  determined  that  there  should  yet 
be  a  closer  union  between  the  Creator  and  creation  than  was 
accomplished  in  Adam.  In  other  words,  God  had  from  eter- 
nity purposed  the  Incarnation ;  though  the  events  in  provi 
dence — which  were  to  exhibit  its  need,  and  give  rise  to  the 
prophetic  announcements  and  foreshadowing  symbols  which 
should  in  due  time  point  the  eye  of  hope  toward  it — came  in 
subsequently  to  creation,  and  by  reason  of  sin;  so  that  the 
Incarnation  was  predestined,  because  the  fall  was  foreseen. 

The  same  caution,  however,  has  not  been  always  observed 
— not  even  in  ancient,  and  still  less  in  recent,  times.  The 
spirit  of  Christian  speculation,  in  proportion  as  the  circum- 

1  See  p.  80. 


CEEATION  HOW  BELATED  TO  CHRISTIANITY.        87 

stances  of  particular  times  have  called  it  into  play,  has  striven 
to  connect  in  some  more  distinct  and  formal  manner  God's 
work  in  creation  with  a  higher  destiny  for  man  in  the  future ; 
but  the  modes  of  doing  so  have  characteristically  differed. 
Among  the  patristic  writers  the  tendency  of  this  speculation 
was  to  find  in  the  original  constitution  of  things  pre-intima- 
tions  or  pledges  of  a  higher  and  more  ethereal  condition  to 
be  reached  by  Adam  and  his  posterity,  as  the  reward  of  obe- 
dience to  the  will  of  God,  and  perseverance  in  holiness.  The 
sense  of  various  passages  upon  the  subject  gathered  out  of 
their  writings  has  been  thus  expressed :  "  That  paradise  was 
to  Adam  a  type  of  heaven ;  and  that  the  never-ending  life  of 
happiness  promised  to  our  first  parents,  if  they  had  continued 
obedient,  and  grown  up  to  perfection  under  that  economy 
wherein  they  were  placed,  should  not  have  continued  in  the 
earthly  paradise,  but  only  have  commenced  there,  and  been 
perpetuated  in  a  higher  state." 1  It  is  impossible  to  say  that 
such  should  not  have  been  the  case ;  for  what  in  the  event 
supposed  might  have  been  the  ultimate  intentions  of  God  re- 
specting the  destinies  of  mankind,  since  revelation  is  entirely 
silent  upon  the  subject,  can  be  matter  only  of  uncertain  con- 
jecture, or,  at  the  very  most,  of  probable  inference.  It  is 
quite  conceivable  that  some  other  region  might  have  been 
prepared  for  their  reception,  where,  free  from  any  formal  test 
of  ooedience,  free  even  from  the  conditions  of  flesh  and  blood, 
and  "  made  like  unto  the  angels,"  they  should  have  reaped 
the  fruits  of  immortality.  But  it  is  equally  conceivable  tnat 
this  earth  itself,  which  "  the  Lord  hath  given  to  the  children 
of  men,"  might  have  become  every  way  suited  to  the  occa- 
sion ;  that  as,  on  the  hypothesis  in  question,  it  should  have 
escaped  the  blighting  influence  of  sin,  so  other  and  happier 
changes  might  have  passed  over  it,  and  the  condition  of  its 
inhabitants,  not  only  than  they  have  actually  undergone,  but 
than  any  we  can  distinctly  apprehend;  until  by  successive 
developments  of  latent  energies,  as  well  of  a  natural  as  of  a 
moral  kind,  the  highest  attainable  good  for  creation  might 
have  been  reached.  For  any  thing  we  can  tell,  there  may 

1  This  proposition,  with  the  authorities  that  support  it,  may  be  found  in 
the  discourses  of  Bishop  Bull,  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  67.  His  proofs  from  the 
earlier  Fathers — Justin  Martyr,  Tatian,  Irenasus — are  somewhat  inadequate. 
The  first  explicit  testimony  is  from  Theophilus  of  Antioch,  who  speaks  of 
Adam  being  "at  length  canonized  or  consecrated  and  ascending  to  heaven," 
if  he  had  gone  on  to  perfection.  The  testimony  becomes  more  full,  as  the 
speculative  tendency  of  the  Greek  philosophy  gains  strength  in  the  Church. 
And  in  the  Liturgy  of  Clemens,  Apost.  Const,  viii.  12,  it  is  said  that  "if  Adam 
had  kept  the  commandments,  he  would  have  received  immortality  as  the  re- 
ward of  his  obedience,"  meaning  thereby,  eternal  life  in  a  higher  sphere. 


88  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTtJfcE. 

have  been  powers  and  susceptibilities  inherent  in  the  original 
constitution  of  things,  which,  under  the  benign  and  fostering 
care  of  its  Creator,  were  capable  of  being  conducted  through 
such  an  indefinite  course  01  progressive  elevation. 

But  every  thing  of  this  sort  belongs  to  speculation,  not  to 
theology ;  it  lies  outside  the  record  which  contains  the  reve- 
lation of  God's  mind  and  will  to  man;  and  to  designate  para- 
dise simply,  and  in  its  relation  to  our  first  parents,  a  type  of 
heaven,  is  even  more  than  to  speak  without  warrant  of  Script- 
ure,— it  is  to  regard  paradise  and  man's  relation  to  it  in 
another  light  than  Scripture  has  actually  presented  them. 
For  tJiere  the  original  frame  and  constitution  of  things  ap- 
pears as  in  due  accordance  with  the  divine  ideal — relatively 
perfect ;  and  not  a  hint  is  dropped,  or,  so  far  as  we  know,  an 
indication  of  any  kind  given,  that  could  beget  in  man's  bosom 
the  expectation  or  desire  of  another  state  of  being  and  enjoy- 
ment than  that  which  he  actually  possessed — none,  till  the 
entrance  of  sin  had  created  new  wants  in  his  condition,  and 
opened  a  new  channel  for  the  display  of  God's  perfections  in 
regard  to  him.  It  was  the  influence  of  the  ancient  philoso- 
phy, which  associated  with  matter  in  every  form  the  ele- 
ments of  evil,  or  at  least  of  imperfection,  that  so  readily  dis- 
posed the  Fathers  of  the  Christian  Church  to  see  in  what  was 
at  first  given  to  Adam  only  the  image  of  some  higher  and 
better  inheritance  destined  for  him  elsewhere.  They  did 
not  consider  what  refinements  matter  itself  might  possibly 
undergo,  in  order  to  its  adaptation  to  the  most  exalted  state 
of  being.  But  the  same  influence  naturally  kept  them  from 
connecting  with  this  prospective  elevation  to  a  higher  sphere 
the  necessary  or  prooable  incarnation  of  the  Word;  since 
rather  by  detaching  the  human  more  from  the  environments 
of  matter,  than  by  bringing  the  divine  into  closer  contact 
with  it,  did  the  prospect  of  a  higher  and  more  perfect  con- 
dition for  man  seem  possible  to  their  apprehensions.  Hence, 
also,  in  what  may  be  fitly  called  the  great  symbol  of  the 
early  Church's  faith  respecting  the  incarnation — the  Nicene 
Creed — the  Fathers  merely  say  that  "  for  us  men,  and  for  the 
sake  of  our  salvation,  the  Word  was  made  flesh." ' 

In  recent  times  the  speculative  tendency,  especially  among 
the  German  divines,  has  shown  a  disposition  to  take  the  other 

1  The  divines  of  the  Reformation  very  commonly  concurred,  to  a  certain 
extent,  in  the  view  of  the  Fathers,  and  hence  the  position  is  defended  by 
Turretine,  that  Adam  had  the  promise  of  being  carried  to  heaven  and  en- 
joying eternal  life  there  as  the  reward  of  his  obedience  (Loc.  Oct.  Qucest.  vi. ). 
But  he  admits  that  Scripture  makes  no  distinct  mention  of  this,  and  that  it 
is  only  matter  of  inference.  The  grounds  of  inference  are  in  this  case,  how- 
evor,  rather  far  to  seek. 


CREATION  HOW  BELATED  TO  CHRISTIANITY.         89 

direction,  namely,  to  make  the  incarnation  of  itself,  and  apart 
altogether  from  the  fall  of  man,  the  necessary  and,  from  the 
first,  the  contemplated  medium  of  man's  elevation  to  the  final 
state  of  perfection  and  blessedness  destined  for  him.  Some 
of  the  scholastic  theologians  had  already  signalized  them- 
selves by  the  advocacy  of  this  opinion — in  particular,  Rup- 
precht  of  Deutz,  Alexander  of  Hales,  Aquinas,  Duns  Scotus ; 
but  it  was  so  strongly  discountenanced  by  Calvin  and  the 
leading  divines  of  the  Reformation,  who  denounced  the  idea 
(propounded  afresh  by  Osiander)  of  an  incarnation  without  a 
£all  as  rash  and  groundless,1  that  it  sunk  into  general  oblivion, 
till  the  turn  given  to  speculative  thought,  by  the  revival  of 
the  pantheistic  theology,  served,  among  other  results,  to  bring 
it  again  into  favor.  This  philosophy,  while  resisted  by  all 
believing  theologians  in  its  strivings  to  represent  the  created 
universe  as  but  the  self-evolution  and  the  varied  form  of  Deity, 
has  still  left  its  impress  on  the  views  of  many  of  them  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  connection  between  Creator  and  creature — 
as  if  an  actual  commingling  between  the  two,  were  in  a  sense, 
mutually  essential;  since  a  personal  indwelling  of  Godhead 
in  the  form  of  humanity  is  conceived  necessary  to  complete 
the  manifestation  of  Godhead  begun  in  Adam,  and  only  by 
such  a  personal  indwelling  could  the  work  of-  creation  attain 
its  end,  either  in  regard  to  the  true  ideal  of -humanity,  on  the 
one  side,  or  to  the  revealed  character  of  God  and  the  religion 
identified  with  it,  on  the  other.  Adam,  therefore,  in  his 
formation  after  the  divine  image,  was  the  type  of  the  God- 
man,  or  the  God-man  was  the  true  archetype  and  only  proper 
realization  of  the  idea  exhibited  in  Adam;  the  fall,  with  its 
attendant  consequences,  only  determined  the  mode  of  Christ's 
appearance  among  men,  but  by  no  means  originated  the  ne- 
cessity of  His  appearing. 

The  representatives  of  this  transcendental  school  of  Typol- 
ogy, as  it  may  not  inaptly  be  called — which  undoubtedly 
includes  some  of  the  most  learned  theologians  of  the  present 
day — differ  to  some  extent  in  their  mode  of  setting  forth  and 
vindicating  the  view  they  hold  in  common,  according  to  the 
particular  aspect  of  it  which  more  especially  strikes  them  as 
important  To  give  only  a  few  specimens — Martensen  pre- 
sents the  incarnation  in  its  relation  to  the  nature  of  God :  the 
true  idea  of  God  is  that  of  the  absolute  personality ;  and  as 
the  union  of  Christ  with  God  is  a  personal  union,  the  indi- 
vidual with  whom  God  historically  entered  into  an  absolute 
union,  must  be  free  from  every  thing  individually  subjec- 

1  See,  foi  example,  Calvin's  List.  lib.  ii.  12,  5.  Maastricht,  Tluol.  lib.  v. 
c.  4,  §  17. 


90  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKIPTUKE. 

tive — he  must  reveal  nothing  save  the  absolute  personality. 
Christ  is  not  to  be  subsumed  under  the  idea  of  humanity,  but, 
inversely,  humanity  must  be  subsumed  under  Him,  since  it 
was  He  in  whom  and  for  whom  all  things  were  created  (CoL 
i  15).  He  is  at  once  the  centre  of  humanity  and  the  revealed 
centre  of  Deity — the  point  at  which  God  and  God's  kingdom 
are  personally  united,  and  who  reveals  in  fulness  what  the 
kingdom  of  God  reveals  in  distinct  and  manifold  forms.  The 
second  Adam  is  both  the  redeeming  and  the  world-complet- 
ing principle ;  the  incarnate  Logos,  and  as  such  the  head  not 
merely  of  the  human  race,  but  of  all  creation,  which  was  made 
by  Him,  and  for  Him,  and  is  again  to  be  recapitulated  in  Him.1 
Lange  makes  his  starting-point  the  final  issues  of  the  incarna- 
tion, and  from  these  argues  its  primary  and  essential  place  in 
the  scheme  of  the  divine  manifestations.  The  post-temporal, 
eternal  glory  of  the  humanity  of  Christ  points  back  to  its 
eternal,  ideal  existence  in  God.  The  eternal  Son  of  God  can 
not,  in  the  course  of  His  temporal  existence,  have  saddled 
Himself  (behaffcet  sich)  forever  with  something  accidental; 
or  have  assumed  a  form  which,  as  purely  historical,  does  not 
correspond  to  His  eternal  essence.  We  must  therefore  dis- 
tinguish between  incarnation  and  assumption  of  the  form  of 
a  servant  (so  as,  he  means,  to  place  the  latter  alone  in  a  rela- 
tion of  dependence  to  the  fall  of  man);  must  also  learn  to 
understand  the  eternal  beginnings  of  Christ's  humanity,  in 
order  to  perceive  how  intimate  a  connection  it  has  with  the 
past — with  the  work  of  creation,  with  primeval  times,  and 
the  history  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  whole  that  appeared 
in  these  of  good  is  to  be  regarded  as  so  many  vital  evolutions 
of  the  divine  life  that  is  in  Christ ;  but  in  Him  alone  is  the 
idea  of  it  fully  realized.*  Both  of  the  writers  just  referred  to, 
also  Liebner,  Rothe,  and,  greater  than  them  all,  Dorner,  lay 
special  stress  on  the  argument  derived  from  the  headship  of 
humanity  indissolubly  linked  to  Christ.  Humanity,  accord- 
ing to  Dorner,  as  it  appears  before  God — redeemed  humanity 
— is  not  merely  a  mass  or  heap  of  unconnected  individuals, 
but  an  organism,  forming,  with  the  world  of  higher  spirits 
and  nature,  which  is  to  oe  glorified  for  and  through  it,  a 
complete  and  perfect  organic  unity.  Even  the  natural  world 
is  an  unity,  solely  because  there  is  indissolubly  united  with 
it  a  principle  which  stands  above  it  and  comprises  it  within 
itself — namely,  the  Divine  Logos,  by  whom  the  world  was 
formed  and  is  sustained,  who  is  the  vehicle  and  the  repre- 

»  Dogmatik,  §  130,  131. 

«  See  the  outline  of  his  views  in  Dorner  on  the  Person  of  Christ,  note  23, 
ToL  iL,  pt  ii.  of  the  original,  note  34  of  the  Eng.  Trans. 


CREATION  HOW  RELATED  TO  CHRISTIANITY.         91 

tentative  of  its  eternal  idea.  But  in  a  higher  sense  the  world 
of  humanity  and  spirits  is  an  unity,  because  through  the  God- 
man  who  stands  over  it,  and  by  His  personal  self-communica- 
tion of  Godhead-fulness  pervades  it^  its  creaturely  suscepti- 
bility to  God  is  filled;  it  now  enters  into  the  circle  of  the 
divine  life,  and  stands  in  living  harmony  with  the  centre 
of  all  good.  But  a  matter  so  essential  to  the  proper  idea  of 
humanity  can  not  belong  to  the  sphere  of  contingency,  it 
must  be  viewed  as  inseparably  connected  with  the  purpose 
of  God  in  creation.  And  there  is  another  thought,  which 
Dorner  conceives  establishes  beyond  doubt  the  belief,  that 
the  incarnation  had  not  its  sole  ground  in  sin,  but  had  a 
deeper,  an  eternal,  and  abiding  necessity  in  the  wise  and  free 
love  of  God, — namely,  that  Christianity  is  the  perfect  religion, 
the  religion  absolutely,  the  eternal  Gospel ;  and  that  for  this 
religion  Christ  is  the  centre,  without  which  it  can  not  be  so 
much  as  conceived.  Whoso,  says  he,  maintains  that  Adam 
might  have  become  perfect  even  without  Christ,  inasmuch  as 
no  one  can  deem  it  possible  to  conceive  of  perfection  with- 
out the  perfect  religion,  maintains,  either  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, two  absolute  religions,  one  without,  and  one 
with  Christ — which  is  a  bare  contradiction.  No  Christian, 
he  thinks,  will  deny  that  it  makes  an  essential  difference, 
whether  Christ,  or  only  God  in  general,  is  the  central  point 
of  a  religion.  At  the  same  time,  with  Christian  candor  he 
admits,  that  the  necessity  of  the  truth  he  advocates  will  not 
so  readily  commend  itself  to  theologians,  who  are  wont  to 
proceed  in  an  experimental  and  anthropological  manner  (that 
is,  who  look  at  the  matter  as  it  has  been  evolved  in  the 
history  and  experience  of  mankind),  as  it  must,  and  actually 
does,  to  those  who  recognize  both  the  possibility  and  the 
necessity  of  a  Christian  speculation,  that  takes  the  concep- 
tion of  God  for  its  starting-point.1 

While  this  mode  of  contemplating  the  incarnation  of 
Christ  and  of  connecting  it  with  the  idea  of  creation,  has 
in  its  recent  development  had  its  origin  in  the  philosophy, 
and  its  formal  exhibition  in  the  theology,  of  Germany,  it  is 
no  longer  confined  to  that  country ;  and  both  the  view  itself, 
and  its  application  to  the  Typology  of  Scripture,  have  already 
found  a  place  in  our  own  theological  literature.  Archbishop 
Trench,  in  his  Sermons  preached  before  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, although  he  advances  nothing  strictly  new  upon  the 
subject,  yet  speaks  not  less  decidedly  respecting  the  necessity 
of  the  incarnation,  apart  altogether  from  the  fall,  to  enable 

1  Person  of  Christ,  voL  ii.  pt.  ii.  p.  1241.  Eng.  Trans.,  Div.  ii.  voL  iii 
p.  323  sq. 


92  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

the  race  of  Adam  "to  attain  the  end  of  its  creation,  the  place 
among  the  families  of  God,  for  which  from  the  first  it  waa 
designed."  Special  stress  is  laid  by  him,  as  by  Lange,  on  the 
issues  of  the  incarnation,  as  reflecting  light  on  its  original 
intention :  "The  taking  on  Himself  of  our  flesh  by  the  Eternal 
Word  was  no  makeshift  to  meet  a  mighty,  yet  still  a  partic- 
ular, emergent  need ;  a  need  which,  conceding  the  liberty  of 
man's  will,  and  that  it  was  possible  for  him  to  have  continued 
in  his  first  state  of  obedience,  might  never  have  occurred.  It 
was  not  a  mere  result  and  reparation  of  the  fall, — such  an  act 
us,  except  for  that,  would  never  have  been ;  but  lay  bedded  at 
a  far  deeper  depth  in  the  counsels  of  God  for  the  glory  of  His 
Son,  and  the  exaltation  of  that  race  formed  in  His  image  and 
His  likeness.  For,  against  those  who  regard  the  incarnation 
as  an  arbitrary,  or  as  merely  an  historic  event,  and  not  an 
ideal  one  as  well,  we  may  well  urge  this  weighty  considera- 
tion, that  the  Son  of  God  did  not,  in  and  after  His  ascension, 
strip  off  this  human  nature  again ;  He  did  not  regard  His  hu- 
manity as  a  robe,  to  be  worn  for  a  while  and  then  laid  aside; 
the  convenient  form  of  His  manifestation,  so  long  as  He  was 
conversing  with  men  on  earth,  but  the  fitness  of  which  had 
with  that  manifestation  passed  away.  So  far  from  this,  we 
know,  on  the  contrary,  that  He  assumed  our  nature  forever, 
married  it  to  Himself,  glorified  it  with  His  own  glory,  carried 
it  as  the  form  of  His  eternal  subsistence  into  the  world  of 
angels,  before  the  presence  of  His  Father.  Had  there  been 
any  thing  accidental  here,  had  the  assumption  of  our  nature 
been  an  afterthought  (I  speak  as  a  man),  this  marriage  of  the 
Son  of  God  with  that  nature  could  scarcely  be  conceived. 
He  could  hardly  have  so  taken  it,  unless  it  had  possessed  an 
ideal  as  well  as  an  historic  fitness ;  unless  pre-established  har- 
monies had  existed,  such  harmonies  as  only  a  divine  intention 
could  have  brought  about  between  the  one  and  the  other." 

The  application  of  this  view  to  Typology  is  apparent  from 
the  very  statement  of  it ;  but  it  has  also  been  formally  made, 
and  so  as  to  combine  the  results  obtained  from  the  geological 
territory  with  those  of  a  more  strictly  theological  nature. 
Thus,  the  late  Mr.  Macdonald l  speaks  of  "  the  scheme  of  na- 
ture, read  from  the  memorials  of  creation  inscribed  on  the 
earth's  crust,  or  recorded  in  the  opening  pages  of  Genesis,  as 
progressive,  and  from  its  very  outset,  prophetic  " ;  and  a  little 
lurtner  on  he  says,  "  There  is  no  reason  whatever  for  confin- 
ing the  typical  to  the  events  and  institutions  subsequent  to 
the  fall.  The  cause  of  this  arbitrary  limitation  lies  in  regard- 

1  Lnirod.  to  the  Pent.  vol.  ii.  p.  46L 


CBEATION   HOW   BELATED   TO  CHRISTIANITY.          93 

ing  as  typical  only  what  strictly  prefigured  redemption,  in- 
stead of  connecting  it  with  God's  manifestation  of  Himself 
and  His  purposes  in  all  His  acts  and  administrations,  which, 
however  varied,  had  from  the  very  first  one  specific  and  ex- 
pressed object  in  view — His  own  glory  through  man,  at  first 
created  in  the  divine  image,  and  since  the  fall  to  be  trans- 
formed into  it;  inasmuch  as  that  moral  disorder  rendered 
such  a  change  necessary.  The  whole  of  the  divine  acts  and 
arrangements  from  the  beginning  formed  part  of  one  system ; 
for,  as  antecedent  creations  reached  their  end  in  man,  so  man 
himself,  in  his  original  constitution,  prefigured  a  new  and 
higher  relation  of  the  race  than  the  incipient  place  reached  in 
creation"  (p.  457).  The  fall  is  consequently  to  be  understood, 
and  is  expressly  represented,  merely  as  a  kind  of  interruption 
or  break  in  the  march  of  providence  toward  its  aim,  in  nature 
akin  to  such  events  as  the  death  of  Abel  and  the  flood  in  after 
times;  while  the  divine  plan  not  the  less  proceeded  on  its 
course,  only  with  special  adaptations  to  the  altered  state  of 
things. 

I.  It  is  this  more  special  bearing  of  the  subject,  its  relation 
to  a  well-grounded  and  truly  Scriptural  Typology,  with  which 
we  have  here  chiefly  to  do ;  and  to  this,  accordingly,  we  shall 
in  the  first  instance  address  ourselves.  In  doing  so,  we  nei- 
ther directly  question  nor  defend  the  truth  of  the  view  under 
consideration :  we  leave  its  title  to  a  place  in  the  deductions 
of  a  scientific  theology  for  the  present  in  abeyance,  and  merely 
regard  it  in  the  light  in  which  it  is  put  by  its  most  learned 
and  thoughtful  advocates,  as  a  matter  of  inference  from  some 
of  the  later  testimonies  of  Scripture  concerning  the  purposes 
of  God;  and  this,  too,  only  as  informed  and  guided  oy  a 
spirit  of  Christian  speculation,  having  for  its  starting-point 
the  conception  of  God. 

Now  trie  matter  standing  thus,  it  would,  as  appears  to  us, 
be  extremely  unwise  to  lay  such  a  view  at  the  foundation  of 
a  typological  system,  or  even  to  give  it  in  such  a  system  a 
distinctly  recognized  place.  For  this  were  plainly  to  bring  a 
certain  measure  of  uncertainty  into  the  very  structure  of  the 
system — founding  upon  a  few  incidental  hints  and  speculative 
considerations  concerning  the  final  purposes  of  God,  in  which 
it  were  vain  to  expect  a  general  concurrence  among  theolo- 
gians, rather  than  upon  the  broad  stream  and  current  of  His 
revelations.  It  were  also,  as  previously  noticed  (p.  37),  to 
make  our  Typology,  in  a  very  important  respect,  return  to 
the  fundamental  erroi  of  the  Cocceian  school ;  that  is,  would 
'nevitably  lead  to  the  too  predominant  contemplation  of  every 


34  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SGRITTUBE. 

thing  in  the  earlier  dispensations  of  God  as  from  the  divii.e 
point  of  view,  and  with  respect  to  the  great  archetypal  idea 
m  Christ,  as  from  the  beginning  foreseen  and  set  up  in  pros- 
pect This  tendency,  indeed,  has  already  in  a  remarkable 
manner  discovered  itself  among  the  divines  who  bring  into 
the  foreground  of  God's  manifestations  of  Himself  the  idea  of 
the  God-man.  Lange,  for  instance,  has  given  representations 
of  the  "  divine  human  life  "  in  the  patriarchs  and  worthies  of 
ancient  times,  which  seem  to  leave  no  very  distinctive  differ- 
ence between  the  action  of  divinity  in  them  and  in  the  person 
of  Jesus.  Nagelsbach  (in  his  work  Der  Gottmensch)  even 
represents  our  first  parent  as  Elohim-Adam  (God-man),  on 
the  ground  of  his  spiritual  essence  being  of  a  divine  nature ; 
and  ooth  in  Adam  after  the  fall,  and  the  better  class  who  suc- 
ceeded, there  was  what  he  calls  an  artificial  realization  of 
the  idea  of  the  God-manhood  attempted,  and  in  part  accom- 
plished. Hence,  not  without  reason  has  Dorner  delivered  a 
caution  to  those  who  coincide  with  him  in  his  view  respect- 
ing the  incarnation,  to  beware  of  darkening  the  preparation 
for  Christ  by  throwing  into  their  delineation  of  early  times 
too  much  of  Christ  Himself,  or  of  becoming  so  absorbed  in 
the  typical  as  to  overlook  the  historical  life  and  struggles  of 
the  people  of  the  Old  Covenant.1  The  caution,  we  are  per- 
suaded, will  be  of  little  avail  so  long  as  the  idea  of  the  incar- 
nation is  placed  in  immediate  relationship  to  God's  work  in 
creation ;  for  in  that  case  it  must  ever  seem  natural  to  make 
that  idea  shine  forth  in  all  the  more  peculiar  instruments  and 
operations  of  God,  and  generally  to  assimilate  humanity  in 
its  better  phases  too  closely  to  the  altogether  singular  and 
mysterious  person  of  Immaiiuel.  A  kind  of  God-manhood 
will  be  found  in  humanity  as  such ;  and  the  real  God-man- 
hood will  almost  inevitably  melt  away  into  the  shadowy  form 
of  a  Sabellian  manifestation. 

Even  if  this  serious  error  could  be  avoided,  another  and 
slighter  form  of  the  same  erroneous  tendency  would  be  sure 
to  prevail, — if  the  incarnation,  as  the  archetypal  idea  of  crea- 
lion,  were  formally  introduced,  and  made  the  guiding-star  of 
our  Typology.  It  would  inevitably  lead  us,  in  our  endeavors 
to  read  out  the  meaning  of  God's  working  in  creation  and 
providence,  to  put  a  certain  strain  upon  the  things  which 
appear,  in  order  to  bring  out  what  is  conceived  to  have  been 
the  ultimate  design  in  them ;  we  would  be  inclined  to  view 
them  rather  as  an  artificial  representation  of  what  God  pre- 
destined and  foresaw,  than  a  natural  and  needed  exhibition 

i  VoL  ii.  pt  ii.  No.  23,  or  Eng.  Trana  No.  34. 


CREATION  HOW  RELATED  TO  CHRISTIANITY.         95 

of  things  to  be  believed  or  hoped  for  by  partially  enlightened 
but  God-fearing  men.  The  divine  here  must  not  be  viewed 
as  moving  in  a  kind  of  lofty  isolation  of  its  own;  it  should 
rather  be  contemplated  as  letting  itself  down  into  the  human. 
We  should  feel  that  we  have  to  do,  not  simply  with  Heaven's 
plan  as  it  exists  in  the  mind  and  is  grasped  by  the  all-com- 
prehending eye  of  God,  but  with  this  plan  as  gradually  evolv- 
ing itself  in  the  sphere  of  human  responsibility,  and  developed 
step  by  step,  in  the  manner  most  fitly  adapted  to  carry  for- 
ward the  corporate  growth  of  the  Church  toward  its  destined 
completeness. 

It  is  the  proper  aim  and  business  of  Typology  to  trace  the 
progress  of  this  development,  and  to  show  how,  amid  many 
outward  diversities  of  form  and  ever-varying  measures  of 
light,  there  were  great  principles  steadily  at  work,  and  in 
their  operations  forecasting,  with  growing  clearness  and  cer- 
tainty, the  appearance  and  kingdom  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
To  such  a  method  also  Typology  must  owe  much  of  the  in- 
terest with  which  it  may  be  able  to  invest  its  proper  line  of 
inquiry,  and  its  success  in  throwing  light  on  the  history  and 
mutual  interconnection  of  the  divine  dispensations.  But  it 
were  to  depart  from  this  safe  and  profitable  course,  if  we 
should  attempt  to  bring  all  that,  by  dint  of  inference  and 
speculation  in  the  strictly  divine  sphere  of  things,  we  might 
mad  it  possible  to  connect  with  the  earlier  acts  and  opera- 
tions of  God.  These  should  rather  be  brought  out  in  the 
aspect  and  relation  they  bore  to  those  whom  they  immedi- 
ately respected,  in  order  that,  from  the  effect  they  were  de- 
signed and  fitted  to  produce  in  the  spiritual  instruction  and 
training  of  men  who  had  to  serve  God  in  their  respective 
generations,  the  place  and  purpose  may  be  learned  which 
Voperly  belonged  to  them  in  the  general  scheme  of  a  pro- 
gressive revelation. 

The  statement  of  Mr.  Macdonald  may  be  referred  to  in 
proof  of  what  is  likely  to  happen  from  the  neglect  of  such 
considerations,  and  from  attempting  to  carry  the  matter 
higher.  The  scheme  of  God,  he  says,  as  well  that  which 
commenced  with  Adam  as  the  preceding  one  which  culmi- 
nated in  him,  was  "  from  the  outset  prophetic  " ;  and  again : 
"The  whole  of  the  divine  acts  and  arrangements  fiom  the 
beginning  formed  parts  of  one  .system;  for,  as  antecedent 
creations  reached  tneir  end  in  man,  so  man  himself,  in  his 
original  constitution,  prefigured  a  new  and  higher  relation 
of  the  race  to  the  Creator,  than  the  incipient  place  reached 
in  creation."  Now,  taking  the  terms  here  used  in  their  ordi- 
nary sense,  we  must  understand  by  this  statement  that  the 


96  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUBR 

work  of  creation  in  Adam  carried  in  its  very  constitution 
the  signs  and  indications  of  better  things  to  come  for  man ; 
for,  to  speak  of  it  as  being  prophetic,  or  having  a  prefigura- 
tion  of  a  higher  relation  to  the  Creator  than  then  actually 
existed,  imports  more  than  that  such  a  destiny  was  in  the 
purpose  and  decrees  of  the  Almighty  (which  no  one  will  dis- 
pute) ;  it  denotes,  that  the  creation  itself  was  of  such  a  kind 
as  to  proclaim  its  own  relative  imperfection,  and  at  the  same 
time,  oy  means  of  certain  higher  elements  interwoven  with 
it,  to  give  promise  of  a  state  in  which  such  imperfection 
should  be  done  away.  The  question,  then,  is,  How  did  it  do 
so,  or  for  whom  ?  The  Lord  Himself,  at  the  close  of  creation, 
pronounced  it  all  very  good;  and  the  charge  given  to  Adam 
and  his  partner  spake  only  of  a  continuance  of  that  good  as 
the  end  they  were  to  aim  at,  and  of  the  loss  of  it  as  the  evil 
they  were  to  shun.  What  ground  is  there  for  supposing  that 
more  was  either  meant  on  God's  part,  or  perceived  on  man's  ? 
Adam,  indeed,  was  made,  and  doubtless  knew  that  he  was 
made,  in  the  image  of  God;  as  such  he  was  set  over  God's 
works,  and  appointed  in  God's  name,  to  exercise  the  rights 
of  a  terrestrial  lordship ;  but  how  should  he  have  imagined 
from  this,  that  it  was  in  the  purposes  of  Heaven  to  enter  into 
a  closer  relationship  with  humanity,  and  that  he,  as  the  im- 
age of  God,  was  but  the  figure  of  one  who  should  be  actually 
God  and  man  united?  Supposing  him,  however,  to  have 
been  ignorant  of  this,  might  it  not  in  fact  have  existed,  as  in 
subsequent  times  there  were  prefigurations  of  Gospel  reali- 
ties, which  were  but  imperfectly,  sometimes  perhaps  not  at 
all,  understood  in  that  character  by  those  who  had  directly 
to  do  with  them  ?  But  the  cases  are  by  no  means  parallel. 
For,  in  regard  to  those  later  prefigurations,  the  promise  had 
already  entered  of  a  restored  ana  perfected  condition ;  and 
believing  men  were  not  only  warranted,  but  in  a  sense  bound, 
to  search  into  them  for  signs  and  indications  of  the  better 
future.  If  they  failed  to  perceive  them,  it  was  because  of 
their  feebleness  of  faith  or  defect  of  spiritual  discernment. 
In  the  primeval  constitution  of  things  it  was  quite  otherwise : 
man  was  altogether  upright,  and  creation  apparently  in  all 
respects  as  it  should  be ;  tne  Creator  Himself  rested  with  sat- 
isfaction in  the  works  of  His  hand,  and  by  the  special  conse- 
cration of  the  seventh  day  invited  His  earthly  representative 
to  do  the  same.  How,  in  such  a  case,  should  the  thought  of 
imperfection  and  deficiency  have  arisen,  or  any  prospect  for 
the  future  seemed  natural,  save  such  as  might  associate  itself 
with  the  progressive  development  and  expansion  of  that  which 
already  existed  ?  Beyond  this,  whatever  there  might  be  in 


CKEATION  HOW  BELATED  TO  CHBISTIANITY.         97 

the  purpose  and  decrees  of  God,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  how 
room  could  yet  have  been  found  for  any  thing  further  enter- 
ing into  the  conceptions  and  hopes  of  man. 

Unquestionably  there  was  much  beyond  in  the  divine  mind 
and  purpose.  "  Known  unto  God  are  all  His  works  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world."  With  infallible  certainty  He  fore- 
saw from  the  outset  the  issues  of  that  constitution  of  things 
which  was  set  up  in  Adam ;  foresaw  also,  and  predetermined, 
the  introduction  of  that  covenant  of  grace  by  which  other  and 
happier  issues  for  humanity  were  to  be  secured.  On  this  ac- 
count it  is  said  of  Christ,  as  the  destined  Mediator  of  that 
covenant,  that  He  was  "  fore-ordained  before  the  foundation 
of  the  world  " ;  and  of  those  who  were  ultimately  to  share  in 
the  fruits  of  His  mediation,  that  they  also  were  chosen  in 
Him  before  the  world  was  made.1  But  it  is  one  thing  to 
assign  a  place  to  such  ulterior  thoughts  and  purposes  in  the 
eternal  counsels  of  the  Godhead,  and  another  thing  to  regard 
them  as  entering  into  the  objective  revelation  He  gave  of 
His  mind  and  will  at  the  creation  of  the  world,  so  as  to  bring 
them  within  the  ken  of  His  intelligent  creatures.  In  doing 
the  one,  we  have  both  the  warrant  of  Scripture  and  the  reason 
of  things  to  guide  us;  while  the  other  would  involve  the 
introduction,  out  of  due  time,  of  those  secret  things  which  as 
yet  belonged  only  to  the  Lord. 

According  to  what  may  be  called  the  palpable  and  pre- 
vailing testimony  of  Scripture  on  the  subject,  the  work  of  God 
in  creation  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  adequate  reflection  of  His 
own  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness,  adapted  in  all  respects  to 
the  special  purposes  for  which  it  was  designed.  But  the  sin 
of  man  through  the  cunning  of  the  tempter  presently  broke 
in  to  mar  the  good ;  and,  following  thereupon,  the  predestined 
plan  of  grace  began  to  give  intimation  of  its  purpose,  and  to 
open  for  itself  a  path  whereby  the  lost  good  should  be  won 
back,  and  the  destroyer  be  himself  destroyed.  This  plan 
starts  on  its  course  with  the  avowed  aim  of  rectifying  the  evil 
which  originated  in  man's  defection ;  and  it  not  less  avowedly 
reaches  its  end  when  the  restitution,  or  bringing  back  again, 
of  all  things  is  accomplished.*  It  carries  throughout  the 
aspect  of  a  remedial  scheme,  a  restoration  of  that  which  had 
come  forth  in  the  freshness  and  beauty  of  life  from  the  hand 
of  God.  A  rise,  no  doubt,  accompanies  the  process ;  and  the 
work  of  God  at  its  consummation  shall  assuredly  be  found  on 
a  much  higher  level  than  at  the  beginning,  as  it  shall  also 
present  a  much  fuller  and  grander  exhibition  of  the  divine 
character  and  perfections.  But  still,  in  the  scriptural  form  of 
1  1  Pet.  L  20;  EpL.  i.  4.  *  Acts  iii  2L 

TOL.  I. — 7* 


98  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

representation,  the  original  work  continues  to  occupy  the 
position  of  the  proper  ideal :  all  things  return,  in  a  manner, 
whence  they  came ;  and  a  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  with 
paradise  restored  and  perennial  springs  of  life  and  blessing, 
appear  in  prospect  as  the  glorious  completion  to  which  the 
whole  scheme  is  gradually  tending.  Since  thus  the  things 
of  creation  are  exhibited  in  a  relation  to  those  of  redemption 
so  markedly  different  from  that  possessed  by  the  preliminary 
to  the  final  processes  of  redemption  itself,  it  were  surely  to 
introduce  an  unjustifiable  departure  from  the  method  of 
Scripture,  and  also  to  confound  things  that  materially  differ, 
were  we,  in  a  typological  respect,  to  throw  all  into  one  and 
the  same  category.  Creation  can  not  possibly  be  the  norm  or 
pattern  of  redemption,  after  the  same  manner  that  an  imper- 
fect or  provisional  execution  of  God's  work  in  grace  is  to  that 
work  in  its  fully  developed  and  ripened  form.  Yet,  for  the 
very  reason  that  redemption  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  restora- 
tion, not  the  introduction  of  something  absolutely  new,  crea- 
tion assuredly  is  a  norm  or  pattern,  to  which  the  divine 
agency  in  redemption  assimilates  its  operations  and  results : 
the  one  bases  itself  upon  the  other,  and  does  not  aim  at  sup- 
planting, but  only  at  rectifying,  reconstructing,  and  perfect- 
ing it  Twin-ideals  they  may  be  called,  and  as  such  they 
can  not  but  present  many  points  of  agreement,  bespeaking 
the  unity  of  one  contriving  and  all-directing  mind,  which  it 
may  well  become  us  on  proper  occasions  to  mark.  But  each 
after  its  own  manner;  and  for  the  province  of  Typology 
proper,  we  can  not  but  deem  it  on  every  account  wise,  ex- 
pedient, and  fitting  that  it  should  confine  itself  to  what 
pertains  to  God's  work  in  grace,  and  should  move  simply 
in  the  sphere  of  "  the  regeneration." 

II.  Passing  now  to  the  more  general  aspect  of  the  view  in 
question  respecting  the  incarnation  and  kingdom  of  Christ, 
or  its  title  to  rank  among  the  deductions  of  theological  in- 
quiry, it  would  be  out  of  place  here  to  go  into  a  lengthened 
examination  of  it ;  and  the  indication  of  a  few  leading  points 
is  all  that  we  shall  actually  attempt.  The  direction  already 
taken  on  the  typological  bearing  of  the  subject,  is  that  also 
which  I  feel  constrained  to  take  regarding  its  general  aspect. 
For,  though  it  scarcely  professes  to  be  more  than  a  specula- 
tion, and  one  purposely  intended  to  exalt  the  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation,  yet  the  tendency  of  it,  I  am  persuaded,  can  not 
be  unattended  with  danger,  as  it  seems  in  various  respects 
opposed  to  the  form  of  sound  doctrine  delivered  to  us  in 
Scripture. 


CBEATION  HOW  BELATED  TO  CHRISTIANITY.        99 

1.  First  of  all,  it  implies,  as  already  stated,  a  view  of  crea- 
tion not  only  discountenanced  by  the  general  current  of  script- 
ural representation,  but  not  easily  reconcilable  with  the  perfect 
wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Creator.     As  a  matter  of  fact, 
creation  in  Adam  certainly  fell  short  of  its  design;  or,  to 
express  it  otherwise,  humanity,  as  constituted  in  our  first 
parent,  failed  to  realize  its  idea.     But  as  so  constituted,  was 
it  not  endowed  with  all  competent  powers  and  resources  for 
attaining  the  end  in  view?    Was  it  absolutely  and  inher- 
ently incapable  of  doing  so  apart  from  the  incarnation  ?     In 
that  case,  one  does  not  see  how  either  the  work  of  God  could 
possess  that  character  of  relative  perfection  constantly  as- 
cribed to  it  in  Scripture,  or  the  defection  of  man  should  have 
drawn  after  it  such  fearful  penalties.     Both  God's  work  and 
man's,  on  the  hypothesis  in  question,  seem  to  take  a  position 
different  from  what  properly  belongs  to  them ;  and  the  mani- 
festation of  God's  moral  character  in  this  world  enters  on  its 
course  amid  difficulties  of  a  very  peculiar  and  embarrassing 
kind.     The  perplexity  thus  arising  is  not  relieved  by  the  sup- 
position that  mankind  will  be  raised  to  a  higher  state  of 
perfection  and  blessedness  through  the  medium  of  the  in- 
carnation than  had  otherwise  been  possible,  and  that  this 
was  hence  implied  in  creation  as  the  means  necessary  to 
creation's  end;  for  we  have  here  to  do  with  the  character  of 
God's  work  considered  by  itself,  and  what  immediately  sprang 
from  it.     Nor  is  it  by  any  means  certain,  or  we  may  even  say 
probable,  that  if  humanity  had  stood  faithful  to  its  engage- 
ments, the  ultimate  destiny  of  its  members  would  have  been 
in  any  respect  lower  than  that  which  they  may  attain  through 
sin  and  redemption.     But  on  such  a  theme,  where  we  have 
no  sure  light  to  guide  us,  it  is  needless  to  expatiate. 

2.  The  view  presented  by  this  theory  of  the  mission  of 
Christ,  however,  is  a  still  more  objectionable  feature  in  it;  for, 
exalting  the  incarnation  as  of  itself  necessarv  to  the  higher 
ends  of  creation,  apart  from  the  concerns  of  sin  and  redemp- 
tion, it  inevitably  tends  to  depress  the  importance  of  these, 
and  gives  to  something  else,  which  was  no  way  essentially 
connected  with  them,  the  place  of  greatest  moment  for  the 
interests  of  humanity.     The  earlier  Socinians,  it  is  well  known, 
on  this  very  ground  favored  the  scholastic  speculations  on  the 
subject;  they  espoused  the  view,  not  indeed  of  an  incarna- 
tion without  a  fall  (for  in  no  proper  sense  did  they  hold  what 
these  terms  import),  but  of  the  necessity  of  the  mission  of 
Christ,  independently  of  the  sin  of  Adam  and  the  consequences 
thence  arising:  in  this  they  appeared  to  find  some  counte- 
nance for  the  comparatively  small  account  they  made  alike  of 


100  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCULPTURE. 

the  evil  of  sin,  and  of  the  wondrous  grace  and  glory  of  i>»- 
demption.  And  to  a  simple,  unbiassed  mind  it  must  appeal 
quite  inexplicable,  that  if  the  incarnation  of  our  Lord  were 
traceable  to  some  higher  and  more  fundamental  reason  than 
that  occasioned  by  the  fall,  no  explicit  mention  should  have 
been  made  of  it,  even  in  a  single  passage  of  Scripture.  All 
the  more  direct  statements  presented  there  respecting  the 
design  and  purpose  of  our  Lord's  appearance  among  men 
stand  inseparably  connected  with  their  deliverance  from  the 
ruin  of  sin,  and  restoration  to  peace  and  blessing.  The  dis- 
tinctive name  He  bore  (Jesus)  proclaimed  SALVATION  to  be  the 
grand  burden  of  His  undertaking;  or,  as  He  Himself  puts  it, 
"  He  came  to  save  the  lost,"  "  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for 
many ;  'M  or  still  again,  "that  men  might  have  life,  and  might 
have  it  more  abundantly."  *  He  was  made  of  a  woman,  made 
under  the  law,  in  order  that  He  might  redeem  them  who 
were  held  under  the  condemnation  of  law.1  He  took  part 
of  flesh  and  blood,  in  order  that  by  His  death  He  might  de- 
stroy him  that  had  the  power  of  death — was  made  like  in 
all  things  to  His  brethren,  as  it  behoved  Him  to  be,  that  He 
might  be  for  them  a  faithful  high  priest,  and  make  reconcilia- 
tion for  their  sins.4  It  is  but  another  form  of  the  same  mode 
of  representation,  when  St.  John  says  of  Christ,  that  He  was 
manifested  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil ; '  and  that  as 
the  gift  of  God's  love  to  the  world,  it  was  to  the  end  that  men 
might  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life.'  In  the  Supper 
also — the  most  distinctive  ordinance  of  the  Gospel — not  the 
incarnation,  but  redemption  is  presented  as  the  central  fact 
of  Christianity.  Such  is  the  common  testimony  of  Scripture : 
redemption  in  some  one  or  other  of  its  aspects  is  perpetually 
associated  with  the  purpose  which  Christ  assumed  our  nature 
to  accomplish ;  and  the  greatness  of  the  remedy  is  made  to 
throw  light  upon  the  greatness  of  the  evil  which  required  its 
intervention.  But  according  to  the  view  we  now  oppose, 
"  both  the  consequences  of  sin  and  the  value  of  redemption 
are  lowered,  since  not  the  incarnation,  but  only  its  special 
form,  is  traceable  to  sin.  That  God  became  man  is  in  itself 
the  greatest  humiliation ;  and  yet  this  adorable  mystery  of 
divine  love  is  not  to  stand  in  any  [necessary]  connection 
with  sin !  Only  the  comparatively  smaller  fact,  that  that 
man  in  whom  God  would  at  any  rate  have  become  incarnate 
had  undergone  sufferings  and  death,  is  due  to  sin!  And 
what  is  even  more  dangerous,  redemption  ceases  to  be  a  free 
act  of  divine  pity,  and  is  represented  as  a  necessity  implied 

1  Matt  xviii.  11,  xx.  28.  *  John  x.  10.  »  Gal  iv.  4. 

4  Heb.  ii.  14-17.  •  l  John  iii.  8.  «  John  iii.  16. 


CREATION  SOW  BELATED  TO  CHRISTIANITY.       101 

in  creation,  which  would  have  taken  place  whether  man  had 
remained  obedient  or  not.  Thus  sin  is  not  the  sole  cause  of 
man's  present  state;  and  however  the  incarnation  might 
remain  an  adorable  mystery  of  love,  redemption  could  no 
longer  do  so,  since  it  had  been  involved  in  the  decree  of  the 
incarnation,  and  could  not  be  regarded  as  proceeding  solely 
from  divine  mercy  and  compassion  toward  fallen  man."1 

There  are  passages  of  Scripture  sometimes  appealed  to  on 
the  other  side,  but  they  have  no  real  bearing  on  the  point 
which  they  are  adduced  to  establish.  One  of  these  is  Eph. 
i.  10,  in  which  the  purpose  of  God  is  represented  as  having 
this  for  its  object,  that  "  in  the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of 
times  He  might  gather  in  one  all  things  in  Christ,  both  which 
are  in  heaven  and  which  are  on  earth. '  The  passage  simply 
indicates,  among  the  final  issues  of  Christ's  work,  the  recapit- 
ulating or  summing  up  (avaKe<pa\aioo6a.6Qai)  of  all  things  in 
Him,  heavenly  as  well  as  earthly;  but  it  is  the  historical 
Christ  that  is  spoken  of — the  Christ  in  whom  (as  is  stated 
immediately  before)  believers  have  redemption  through  His 
blood,  and  are  predestinated  to  life  eternal;  and  there  is  not 
a  hint  conveyed  of  the  purpose  of  predestination  of  God, 
except  in  connection  with  the  salvation  of  fallen  man,  and 
the  work  of  reconciliation  necessary  to  secure  it.  What 
might  have  been  the  divine  purpose  apart  from  this,  we  may 
inoieed  conjecture,  but  it  must  be  without  any  warrant  what- 
ever from  the  passage  before  us;  and,  as  Calvin  has  justly 
said,  not  without  the  audacity  of  seeking  to  go  beyond  the 
immutable  ordination  of  God,  and  attempting  to  know  more 
of  Christ  than  was  predestinated  concerning  Him  even  in 
the  divine  decree.2 — The  somewhat  corresponding  but  more 
comprehensive  passage  in  Col.  i.  15-17,  has  been  also  referred 
to  in  this  connection,  but  with  no  better  result.  For  though 
expressions  are  there  applied  to  Christ  which,  if  isolated  from 
the  context,  might  with  some  plausibility  be  explained  to 
countenance  the  idea  of  an  incarnation  irrespective  of  a  fall, 
yet,  when  taken  in  their  proper  connection,  they  contain  noth- 
ing to  justify  such  an  application.  The  starting-point  here 
also  is  redemption  (ver.  14,  "in  whom  we  have  redemption 
through  His  blood,  the  forgiveness  of  sins");  and  the  state- 
ments in  what  immediately  follows  (Vers.  15-17),  have  evi- 
dently for  their  main  object  the  setting  forth  of  the  divine 
greatness  of  Him  by  whom  it  is  effected — as  the  One  by  whom 
and  for  whom  all  things  were  created — Himself,  consequently, 
prior  to  them  all,  and  infinitely  exalted  above  them.  But  this 

i  Kurtz,  Bible  and  Astronomy,  ch.  ii.  §  12,  frans.       » Inst.  B.  ii.  c.  12,  §  5. 


102  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

plainly  refers  to  Christ  as  the  Logos,  or  Word,  through  whom 
as  such  the  agency  is  carried  on,  and  the  works  are  performed, 
by  which  the  Godhead  is  revealed  and  brought  out  to  the  view 
of  finite  intelligence.  In  that  respect  He  is  "  the  image  of 
the  invisible  God  "  (ver.  15) ;  because  in  Him  exists  with  per- 
fect fulness,  and  from  Him  goes  forth  into  actual  embodi- 
ment, that  which  forms  a  just  representation  of  the  mind 
and  character  of  the  Eternal  On  the  same  account  also,  and 
with  reference  simply  to  His  creative  agency,  He  is  "  the  first- 
born of  every  creature";  being  the  causal  beginning,  whence 
the  whole  sprang  into  existence,  and  the  natural  head,  under 
whom  all  its  orders  of  being  must  ever  stand  ranged  before 
God.  His  divine  Sonship  is  consequently  the  living  root,  in 
which  the  filial  relationship  of  men  and  angels  had  its  imme- 
diate ground ;  and  His  image  of  Godhead  that  which  reflected 
itself  in  their  original  righteousness  and  purity.  Hence,  as  all 
things  came  from  Him  at  first  in  the  character  of  the  reveal- 
ing Word,  so  they  shall  be  again  recapitulated  in  Him  as  the 
Word  made  flesh — though  in  degrees  of  aflinity  to  Him,  and 
with  diversity  of  results  corresponding  to  the  relations  they 
respectively  occupied  to  His  redemptive  agency.  Hence,  also, 
the  divine  image,  which  by  Him  as  the  Creator  was  imparted 
to  Adam,  is  again  restored  upon  all  who  become  interested  in 
Him  as  the  Redeemer;  they  are  renewed  after  the  image  of 
Him  that  created  them ; l  implying  that  His  work  in  redemp- 
tion, as  to  its  practical  effect  on  the  soul,  is  a  substantial  re- 
production of  that  which  proceeded  from  Him  at  creation. 

We  have  looked  at  the  only  passages  worth  naming,  which 
have  been  pressed  in  support  of  the  theory  under  considera- 
tion, and  can  see  nothing  in  them,  when  fairly  interpreted, 
that  seems  at  variance  with  the  general  tenor  of  the  testi- 
mony of  Scripture  on  the  subject.  But  this  so  distinctly  and 
constantly  associates  the  incarnation  of  Christ  with  the  scheme 
of  redemption,  that  to  treat  it  otherwise  must  be  held  to  be 
essentially  antiscriptural. 

3.  The  matter  is  virtually  disposed  of,  in  a  theological 
point  of  view,  when  we  have  brought  to  bear  upon  it  with 
apparent  conclusiveness  the  testimony  of  Scripture;  nor  is 
there  any  thing  in  the  collateral  arguments  employed  by  the 
advocates  of  the  theory,  as  indicated  in  the  outline  formerly 
given  of  their  views,  which  ought  to  shake  our  confidence  in 
the  result.  That,  for  example,  derived  from  the  wonderful 
relationship,  the  personal  and  everlasting  union,  into  which 
humanity  has  been  brought  with  Godhead,  as  i£  when  made 

>  OoL  iii.  10;  Eph.  IT.  24. 


CREATION  HOW  RELATED  TO  CHRISTIANITY.       103 

dependent  on  the  fall,  the  purpose  concerning  it  should  be 
turned  into  a  kind  of  after-thought,  and  it  should  sink,  in  a 
manner  derogatory  to  its  high  and  unspeakably  important 
nature,  into  something  arbitrary  and  contingent: — such  an 
argument  derives  all  its  plausibility  from  the  limitations  and 
defects  inseparable  from  a  human  mode  of  contemplation. 
To  the  eye  of  Him  who  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning, — 
whose  purpose,  embracing  the  whole  compass  of  the  provi- 
dential plan,  was  formed  before  even  the  beginning  was 
effected, — there  could  be  nothing  really  contingent  or  uncer- 
tain in  any  part  of  the  process.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
the  creation  of  man  necessary  (in  the  absolute  sense  of  the 
term),  any  more  than  the  fall  of  man:  it  depended  on  the 
movements  of  a  will  sovereignly  free;  and,  nypothetically, 
must  be  placed  among  the  things  which,  prior  to  their  exist- 
ence, might  or  might  not,  to  human  view,  have  taken  place. 
Besides,  since  anyhow  the  mode  of  the  incarnation  was  deter- 
mined by  the  circumstances  of  the  fall,  and  the  mode,  as  well 
as  the  thing  itself,  decreed  from  the  very  first,  how  can  we 
with  propriety  distinguish  between  the  two?  The  one,  as 
well  as  the  other,  has  a  most  intimate  connection  with  the 
perfections  of  Deity ;  and,  for  any  thing  we  know,  the  reality 
in  any  other  form  might  not  have  approved  itself  to  the  infi- 
nitely wise  and  absolutely  perfect  mind  of  God.  Otherwise 
than  it  is,  we  can  have  no  right  to  say  it  would  have  been 
at  all. 

The  argument  founded  on  the  supposed  necessity  of  the 
incarnation  to  the  proper  unity  of  the  human  race,  is  entitled 
to  no  greater  weight  than  the  one  just  noticed.  It  assumes  a 
necessity  which  has  not  and  can  not  be  proved  to  have  existed. 
Situated  as  the  human  family  now  is,  it  may  no  doubt  be  fitly 
designated,  with  Dorner,  "a  mere  mass,"  an  aggregate  of  indi- 
viduals, without  any  pervading  principle  to  constitute  them 
into  an  organism.  But  this  is  itself  one  of  the  results  of  the 
fall ;  and  no  one  is  entitled  to  argue  from  what  actually  is,  to 
what  would  have  been,  if  the  race  had  stood  in  its  normal 
condition.  In  the  transmission  of  Adam's  guilt  to  his  pos- 
terity, with  its  fearful  heritage  of  suffering,  corruption,  and 
deatn,  we  have  continually  before  us  the  remains  of  a  living 
organism, — the  reverse  side,  as  it  were,  of  the  original  like- 
ness of  humanity.  Why  might  there  not  have  been,  had  its 
divinely  constituted  head  proved  steadfast  to  his  engage- 
ments, the  transmission  through  that  head  of  a  yet  more 
powerful  as  well  as  happy  influence  to  all  the  members  of  the 
family  ?  We  have  no  reason  to  affirm  such  a  thing  to  have 
been  impossible,  especially  as  the  human  head  was  but  the 


104  THE  TWOLOQY  Otf  SCRtPTUBE. 

representative  and  medium  of  communication  appointed  by 
and  for  Him  who  was  the  causal  or  creative  Head  of  the 
family.  Dorner  himself  admits  that  even  the  natural  world 
is  a  unity,  because  in  the  divine  Logos,  as  the  world-former 
and  preserver,  who  in  Himself  bears  and  represents  its  eter- 
nal iaea,  it  has  a  principle  which  is  above  it,  yet  pervades  it, 
and  comprises  it  within  itself.1  If  so  much  can  be  said  even 
now,  how  much  more  might  it  have  been  said  of  the  world 
viewed  as  it  came  from  the  hand  of  its  Maker, — with  no 
moral  barrier  to  intercept  the  flow  of  life  and  blessing  from 
its  divine  Fountainheaa,  and  paralyze  the  constitution  of 
nature  in  its  more  vital  functions !  In  that  case  the  unity  in 
diversity,  which  is  now  the  organic  principle  of  the  Christian 
Church,  might,  and  doubtless  would,  have  been  that  also  of 
the  Adamic  family :  only,  in  the  one  case,  having  its  recog- 
nized seat  and  effective  power  in  Christ  as  the  incarnate 
Redeemer;  in  the  other,  in  Him  as  the  eternal  and  creative 
Word.  Indeed,  from  the  general  relation  of  the  two  econo- 
mies to  each  other,  we  are  warranted  in  assuming  that  as, 
in  regard  to  individuals,  Christ,  the  Redeemer,  restores  the 
divine  image,  which,  as  to  all  essential  properties,  was  orig- 
inally given  by  Christ,  the  Word,  so  in  regard  to  the  race 
(considered  as  the  subject  of  blessing),  He  restores  in  the  one 
capacity  what,  as  to  germ  and  principle,  He  had  implanted 
in  the  other.  There  are,  of  course,  gradations  and  differences, 
but  with  these  also  fundamental  agreements. 

As  to  the  argument  that  Christianity  is  the  absolute  relig- 
ion, and  that  without  an  incarnation  there  could  be  no  Chris- 
tianity in  the  proper  sense,  little  more  need  be  said,  than  that 
it  starts  a  problem  which,  in  our  present  imperfect  condition, 
we  want  the  materials  for  solving, — if  indeed  we  shall  ever 
possess  them.  To  speak  of  the  absolute  in  connection  with 
what,  from  its  very  nature,  and  with  a  view  to  its  distinctive 
aims,  is  necessarily  interwoven  with  much  that  is  of  a  relative 
and  local  character,  is  to  employ  terms  to  which  we  find  it 
impossible  to  attach  a  very  definite  meaning.  But  if  a  relig- 
ion is  entitled  to  be  called  absolute,  it  surely  ought  to  be 
because  it  is  alike  adapted  to  all,  who  through  it  are  to  con- 
template and  adore  God — the  whole  universe  of  intelligent 
and  moral  creatures.  How  this,  however,  could  have  been 
found  in  a  revelation  which  had  the  incarnation  for  its  cen- 
tral fact, — found  precisely  on  this  account,  and  no  otherwise, 
— is  hard  to  be  understood,  since,  to  say  nothing  of  the  incar- 
nation as  now  indissolubly  linked  to  the  facts  of  redemption, 

'  VoL  iL  pt  ii.  p.  1242.    Eng.  Trans.  Div.  ii.  voL  iii  p.  235. 


CREATION   HOW  BELATED  TO  CHBISTIANITY.       105 

even  an  incarnation  dissociated  from  every  thing  relating  to 
a  fall  must  still  be  viewed  as  presenting  aspects,  and  bearing 
a  relation,  to  the  human  family,  which  it  could  not  have  done 
to  angelic  natures.  But,  apart  from  this  apparent  incon- 
gruity, if  there  be  such  a.  thing  possible  as  a  religion  that  can 
justly  be  entitled  to  the  name  of  absolute,  we  know  as  yet 
too  little  of  the  created  universe,  and  the  relations  in  which 
other  portions  of  its  inhabitants  stand  to  the  Creator,  to  pro- 
nounce with  confidence  on  the  conditions  which  would  be 
required  to  meet  in  it.  We  stand  awed,  too,  by  the  solemn 
utterance,  "  No  man  knoweth  the  Father,  but  the  Son,  and  he 
to  whomsoever  the  Son  may  reveal  Him ; "  and  assured  that 
the  Son  has  nowhere  revealed  what,  according  to  the  mind 
of  the  Father,  would  be  needed  to  constitute  for  all  times  and 
regions  the  absolute  religion,  we  feel  that  on  such  a  theme 
silence  is  our  true  wisdom. 


CHAPTER  FIFTH. 

PROPHETICAL  TYPES,  OB  THE  COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PEOPHKOT— 
ALLEGED  DOUBLE  SENSE  OF  PROPHECY. 

A  TYPE,  as  already  explained  and  understood,  necessarily 
possesses  something  of  a  prophetical  character,  and  differs  in 
form  rather  than  in  nature  from  what  is  usually  designated 
prophecy.  The  one  images  or  prefigures,  while  the  other 
foretells,  coming  realities.  In  the  one  case  representative 
acts  or  symbols,  in  the  other  verbal  delineations,  serve  the 
purpose  of  indicating  beforehand  what  God  was  designed  to 
accomplish  for  His  people  in  the  approaching  future.  The 
difference  is  not  such  as  to  affect  the  essential  nature  of 
the  two  subjects,  as  alike  connecting  together  the  Old  and 
the  New  in  God's  dispensations.  In  distinctness  and  pre- 
cision, however,  simple  prophecy  has  greatly  the  advantage 
over  informations  conveyed  oy  type.  For  prophecy,  however 
it  may  differ  in  its  general  characteristics  from  history,  as  it 
naturally  possesses  something  of  the  directness,  so  it  may  also 
descend  to  something  of  the  definiteness,  of  historical  de- 
scription. But  types  having  a  significance  or  moral  import 
of  their  own,  apart  from  any  thing  prospective,  must,  in  their 
prophetical  aspect,  be  somewhat  less  transparent,  and  possess 
more  of  a  complicated  character.  Still  the  relation  between 
type  and  antitype,  when  pursued  through  all  its  ramifica- 
tions, may  produce  as  deep  a  conviction  of  design  and  pre- 
ordained connection,  as  can  be  derived  from  simple  prophecy 
aud  its  fulfilment,  though,  from  the  nature  of  things,  the 
evidence  in  the  latter  case  must  always  be  more  obvious  and 
palpable  than  in  the  former. 

But  the  possession  of  the  same  common  character  is  not 
the  onlv  link  of  connection  between  type  and  prophecy. 
Not  only  do  they  agree  in  having  both  a  prospective  refer- 
ence to  the  future,  but  they  are  often  also  combined  into  one 
prospective  exhibition  of  the  future.  Prophecy,  though  it 
sometimes  is  of  a  quite  simple  and  direct  nature,  is  not  al- 
ways, nor  even  commonly,  of  this  description;  it  can  scarcely 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PROPHECY.         107 

ever  be  said  to  delineate  the  future  with  the  precision  and 
exactness  that  history  employs  in  recording  the  past.  In 
many  portions  of  it  there  is  a  certain  degree  of  complexity, 
if  not  dubiety,  and  that  mainly  arising  from  the  circumstances 
and  transactions  of  the  past  being  in  some  way  interwoven 
with  its  anticipations  of  things  to  come.  Here,  however,  we 
approach  the  confines  of  a  controversy  on  which  some  of  the 
greatest  minds  have  expended  their  talents  and  learning,  and 
with  such  doubtful  success  on  either  side,  that  the  question  is 
still  perpetually  brought  up  anew  for  discussion,  whether 
there  is  or  is  not  a  double  sense  in  prophecy  ?  That  some 
portion  of  debatable  ground  will  always  remain  connected 
with  the  subject,  appears  to  us  more  than  probable.  But,  at 
the  same  time,  we  are  fully  persuaded  that  the  portion  ad- 
mits of  being  greatly  narrowed  in  extent,  and  even  reduced 
to  such  small  dimensions  as  not  materially  to  afiect  the  set- 
tlement of  the  main  question,  if  only  the  typical  element  in 
prophecy  is  allowed  its  due  place  and  weight.  This  we  shall 
endeavor,  first  of  all,  to  exhibit  in  the  several  aspects  in 
which  it  actually  presents  itself;  and  shall  then  subjoin  a 
few  remarks  on  the  views  of  those  who  espouse  either  side 
of  the  question,  as  it  is  usually  stated. 

From  the  general  resemblance  between  type  and  prophecy, 
we  are  prepared  to  expect  that  they  may  sometimes  run  into 
each  other;  and  especially,  that  the  typical  in  action  may  in 
various  wavs  form  the  groundwork  and  the  materials  by 
means  of  which  the  prophetic  in  word  gave  forth  its  intima- 
tions of  the  coming  future.  And  this,  it  is  (juite  conceivable, 
may  have  been  done  under  any  of  the  following  modifications. 
1.  A  typical  action  might,  in  some  portion  of  the  prophetic 
word,  oe  historically  mentioned ;  and  hence  the  mention  be- 
ing that  of  a  prophetical  circumstance  or  event,  would  come 
to  possess  a  prophetical  character.  2.  Or  something  typical 
in  the  past  or  the  present  might  be  represented  in  a  distinct 
prophetical  announcement,  as  going  to  appear  again  in  the 
future;  thus  combining  together  the  typical  in  act  and  the 
prophetical  in  word.  3.  Or  the  typical,  not  expressly  and 
formally,  but  in  its  essential  relations  and  principles,  might 
be  embodied  in  an  accompanying  prediction,  which  foretold 
things  corresponding  in  nature,  but  far  higher  and  greater 
in  importance.  4.  Or,  finally,  the  typical  might  itself  be  still 
future,  and  in  a  prophetic  word  might  be  partly  described, 
partly  presupposed,  as  a  vantage-ground  for  the  delineation 
of  other  things  still  more  distant,  to  which,  when  it  occurred, 
it  was  to  stand  in  the  relation  of  type  to  antitype.  We  could 
manifestly  have  no  difficulty  in  conceiving  such  combinations 


108  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

of  type  with  prophecy,  without  any  violence  done  to  thtir 
distinctive  properties,  or  any  invasion  made  on  their  respec- 
tive provinces;  nothing,  indeed,  happening  but  what  might 
have  oeen  expected  from  their  mutual  relations,  and  their  fit- 
ness for  being  employed  in  concert  to  the  production  of  com- 
mon ends.  And  we  shall  now  show  how  each  of  the  suppo- 
sitions has  found  its  verification  in  the  prophetic  Scriptures.1 

I.  The  first  supposition  is  that  of  a  tvpical  action  be- 
ing historically  mentioned  in  the  prophetic  word,  and  the 
mention,  being  that  of  a  prophetical  circumstance  or  event, 
thence  coming  to  possess  a  prophetical  character.  There  are 
two  classes  of  scriptures  which  may  be  said  to  verify  this 
supposition,  one  of  which  is  of  a  somewhat  general  and  com- 
prehensive nature,  so  that  the  fulfilment  is  not  necessarily 
confined  to  any  single  person  or  period,  though  it  could  not 
fail  in  an  especial  manner  to  appear  in  the  personal  history 
of  Christ.  To  this  class  belong  such  recorded  experiences  as 
the  following: — "The  zeal  of  thine  house  hath  eaten  me  up;"1 
"He  that  eateth  bread  with  me  hath  lifted  up  his  heel  against 
me;"*  "They  hated  me  without  a  cause;"4  "The  stone  which 
the  builders  rejected  is  become  the  head  of  the  corner." 
These  passages  are  all  distinctly  referred  to  Christ  in  the 
Gospels,  and  the  things  that  befell  Him  are  expressly  said  or 
plainly  indicated  to  have  happened,  that  such  scriptures 
might  be  fulfilled.  Yet,  as  originally  penned,  they  assume 
the  form  of  historical  statements  rather  than  of  prophetical 
announcements — recorded  experiences  on  the  part  of  those 
who  indited  them,  and  experiences  of  a  kind  that,  in  one  form 
or  another,  could  scarcely  fail  to  be  often  recurring  in  the 
history  of  God's  Church  and  people.  As  such  it  might  have 
seemed  enough  to  say  that  they  contained  general  truths 
which  were  exemplified  also  in  Jesus,  when  travailing  in  the 
work  of  man's  redemption.  But  the  convictions  of  Jesus 
Himself  and  the  inspired  writers  of  the  New  Testament  go 
beyond  this ;  they  perceive  a  closer  connection — a  prophetical 
element  in  the  passages,  which  must  find  its  due  fulfilment 
in  the  personal  expenence  of  Christ.  And  this  the  passages 

1  It  is  proper  to  state,  however,  that  we  can  not  present  here  any  thing  like 
a  fall  and  complete  elucidation  of  the  subject;  and  we  therefore  mean  to  sup- 
plement this  chapter  by  an  Appendix  on  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New,  in 
which  the  subject  will  both  be  considered  from  a  different  point  of  view,  and 
followed  out  more  into  detail.     See  Appendix  A. 
»  Ps.  Ixix.  9;comp.  with  John  ii.  17. 
Ps.  ill.  9;  comp.  with  John  xiii.  18. 
Ps.  Ixix.  4;  comp.  with  John  xv.  25. 
•  PB.  cxviii.  22;  comp.  with  Matt,  xxl  42,  1  Pet  ii.  6,  7. 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PROPHECY.          109 

contained,  simply  from  their  being,  in  their  immediate  and 
historical  reference,  descriptive  of  what  belonged  to  charac- 
ters— David  and  Israel — that  bore  typical  relations  to  Christ; 
so  that  their  being  descriptive  in  the  one  respect  necessarily 
implied  their  being  prophetic  in  the  other.  What  had  for- 
merly taken  place  in  the  experience  of  the  type,  must  sub- 
stantially renew  itself  again  in  the  experience  of  the  great 
antitype,  whatever  other  and  inferior  renewals  it  may  find 
besides. 

To  the  same  class  also  may  be  referred  the  passage  in  Ps. 
Ixxviii.  2,  "  I  will  open  my  mouth  in  a  parable  (lit.  simili- 
tude) ;  I  will  utter  dark  sayings  (lit.  riddles)  of  old,"  which 
in  Matt.  xiii.  35  is  spoken  of  as  a  prediction  that  found,  and 
required  to  find,  its  fulfilment  in  our  Lord's  using  the  para- 
bolic mode  of  discourse.  As  an  utterance  hi  the  seventy- 
eighth  Psalm,  the  word  simply  records  a  fact,  but  a  fact 
essentially  connected  with  the  discharge  of  the  prophetical 
office,  and  therefore  substantially  indicating  what  must  be 
met  with  in  Him  in  whom  all  prophetical  endowments  were 
to  have  their  highest  manifestation.  Every  prophet  may  be 
said  to  speak  in  similitudes  or  parables  in  the  sense  here  in- 
dicated, which  is  comprehensive  of  all  discourses  upon  divine 
things,  delivered  in  figurative  terms  or  an  elevated  style,  and 
requiring  more  than  common  discernment  to  understand  it 
aright.  The  parables  of  our  Lord  formed  one  species  of  it, 
but  not  by  any  means  the  only  one.  It  was  the  common 
prophetico-poetical  diction,  which  was  characterized,  not  only 
by  the  use  of  measured  sentences,  but  also  by  the  predomi- 
nant employment  of  external  forms  and  natural  similitudes. 
But  marking  as  it  did  the  possession  of  a  prophetical  gift,  the 
record  of  its  employment  by  Christ's  prophetical  types  and 
forerunners  was  a  virtual  prediction  that  it  should  oe  ulti- 
mately used  in  some  appropriate  form  by  Himself. 

The  other  class  of  passages  which  comes  within  the  terms 
of  the  first  supposition,  is  of  a  more  specific  and  formal  char- 
acter. It  coincides  with  the  class  already  considered,  in  so 
far  as  it  consists  of  words  originally  descriptive  of  some  trans- 
action or  circumstance  in  the  past,  but  afterwards  regarded 
as  prophetically  indicative  of  something  similar  under  the 
Gospel.  Such  is  the  word  in  Hos.  xi.  1,  "  I  called  my  son  out 
of  Egypt,"  which,  as  uttered  by  the  prophet,  was  unquestion- 
ably meant  to  refer  historically  to  the  fact  of  the  Lord's  good- 
ness in  delivering  Israel  from  that  land  of  bondage  and 
oppression.  But  the  evangelist  Matthew  expressly  points 
to  it  as  a  prophecy,  and  tells  us  that  the  infant  Jesus  was  for 
*  time  sent  into  Egvpt,  and  again  brought  out  of  it,  that  the 


110  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

word  might  be  fulfilled.  This  arose  from  the  typical  connec- 
tion between  Christ  and  Israel.  The  scripture  fulfilled  was 
prophetical,  simply  because  the  circumstance  it  recorded  was 
typical.  But  in  so  considering  it,  the  evangelist  puts  no 
peculiar  strain  upon  its  terms,  nor  introduces  any  sort  of 
double  sense  into  its  import.  He  merely  points  to  the  pro- 
phetical element  involved  in  the  transaction  it  relates,  and 
thereby  discovers  to  us  a  bond  of  connection  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  in  God's  dispensations,  necessary  to  be  kept  in 
view  for  a  correct  apprehension  of  both. 

The  same  explanation  in  substance  may  be  given  of  an- 
3  other  example  of  the  same  class — the  word  in  Exod.  xii.  46, 
"A  bone  of  him  shall  not  be  broken,"  which  in  John  xix.  36 
is  represented  as  finding  its  fulfilment  in  the  remarkable 
preservation  of  our  Lord  s  body  on  the  cross  from  the  com- 
mon fate  of  malefactors.  The  scripture  in  itself  was  a  histor- 
ical testimony  regarding  the  treatment  the  Israelites  were  to 
give  to  the  paschal  lamb,  which,  instead  of  being  broken  into 
fragments,  was  to  be  preserved  entire,  and  eaten  as  one  whole. 
It  could  only  be  esteemed  a  prophecy  from  being  the  record 
of  a  typical  or  prophetical  action.  But,  when  viewed  in  that 
light,  the  scripture  itself  stands  precisely  as  it  did,  without 
any  recondite  depth  or  subtle  ambiguity  being  thrown  into 
its  meaning.  For  the  prophecy  in  it  is  found,  not  by  extract- 
ing from  its  words  some  new  and  hidden  sense,  but  merely 
by  noting  the  typical  import  of  the  circumstances  of  which 
the  words  in  their  natural  and  obvious  sense  are  descriptive. 
How  either  Israel  or  the  paschal  lamb  should  have  been  in 
such  a  sense  typical  of  Christ,  that  what  is  recorded  of  the  one 
could  be  justly  regarded  as  a  prophecy  of  what  was  to  take 
place  in  the  other,  will  be  matter  for  future  inquiry,  and,  in 
connection  with  some  other  prophecies,  will  6e  partly  ex- 
plained in  the  Appendix  already  referred  to  in  this  chapter. 
It  is  the  principle  on  which  the  explanation  must  proceed,  to 
which  alone  for  the  present  we  desire  to  draw  attention,  and 
which,  in  the  cases  now  under  consideration,  simply  recog- 
nizes the  prophetical  element  involved  in  the  recorded  cir- 
cumstance or  transaction  of  the  past.  Neither  is  the  Old 
Testament  Scripture,  taken  by  itself,  prophetical;  nor  does 
the  New  Testament  Scripture  invest  it  with  a  force  and 
meaning  foreign  to  its  original  purport  and  design.  The  Old 
merely  records  the  typical  fact,  which  properly  constitute* 
the  whole  there  is  of  prediction  in  the  matter ;  while  the  New 
reads  forth  its  import  as  such,  by  announcing  the  correlative 
events  or  circumstances  in  which  the  fulfilment  should  be 
discovered.  And  nothing  more  is  needed  for  perfectly  har- 


COMBINATION  OP  TYPE  WITH  PEOPHEOY.          Ill 

monizing  the  two  together,  than  that  we  should  so  far  identify 
the  typical  transaction  recorded  with  the  record  that  em- 
bodies it,  as  to  perceive  that  when  the  Gospel  speaks  of  a 
scripture  fulfilled,  it  speaks  of  that  scripture  in  connection 
with  the  prophetical  character  of  the  subject  it  relates  to. 

There  is  nothing,  surely,  strange  or  anomalous  in  this.  It 
is  but  the  employment  of  a  metonymy  of  a  very  common  kind, 
according  to  which  what  embodies  or  contains  any  thing  is 
viewed  as  in  a  manner  one  with  the  thing  itself — as  when  the 
earth  is  made  to  stand  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  a  house 
for  its  inmates,  a  cup  for  its  contents,  a  word  descriptive  of 
events  past  or  to  come,  as  if  it  actually  produced  them.1  Of 
course,  the  validity  of  such  a  mode  of  explanation  depends 
entirely  upon  the  reality  of  the  connection  between  the  alleged 
type  and  antitype— between  the  earlier  circumstance  or  object 
described,  and  the  later  one  to  which  the  description  is  pro- 
phetically applied.  On  any  other  ground  such  references  as 
those  in  the  one  evangelist  to  Hosea,  and  in  the  other  to 
Exodus,  can  only  be  viewed  as  fanciful  or  strained  accommo- 
dations. But  the  matter  assumes  another  aspect  if  the  one 
was  originally  ordained  in  anticipation  of  the  other,  and  so 
ordained  that  the  earlier  should  not  have  been  brought  into 
existence  if  the  later  had  not  been  before  in  contemplation. 
Seen  from  this  point  of  view,  which  we  take  to  have  been  that 
of  the  inspired  writers,  the  past  appears  to  run  into  the  future, 
and  to  have  existed  mainly  on  its  account.  And  the  record 
or  delineation  of  the  past  is  naturally  and  j'ustly,  not  by  a 
mere  fiction  of  the  imagination,  held  to  possess  the  essential 
character  of  a  prediction.  Embodying  a  prophetical  circum- 
stance or  action,  it  is  itself  named  by  one  of  the  commonest 
figures  of  speech,  a  prophecy. 

II.  Our  second  supposition  was  that  of  something  typical 
in  the  past  or  present  being  represented  in  a  distinct  prophet- 
ical announcement  as  going  to  appear  again  in  the  future, — 
the  prophetical  in  word  being  thus  combined  with  the  typi- 
cal in  act  into  a  prospective  delineation  of  things  to  come. 
This  supposition  also  includes  several  varieties,  and  in  one 
form  or  another  has  its  exemplifications  in  many  parts  of  the 
prophetic  word.  For  it  is  in  a  manner  the  native  tendency 
of  the  mind,  when  either  of  itself  forecasting,  or  under  the 

1  So,  for  example,  in  HOB.  vi  5,  "I  have  hewed  them  by  the  prophets;" 
Gen.  xxvii.  37,  "Behold,  I  have  made  him  thy  lord;"  xlviii.  22,  "I  have  given 
thee  one  portion  above  thy  brethren,  which  I  took  out  of  the  hand  of  the 
Amorite  "—each  ascribing  to  the  word  spoken  the  actual  doing  of  that  which 
it  only  declared  to  have  been  done. 


112  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

guidance  of  a  divine  impulse  anticipating  and  disclosing  the 
future,  to  see  this  future  imaged  in  the  past,  to  make  use  of 
the  known  in  giving  shape  and  form  to  the  unknown;  so 
that  the  things  which  have  been  are  then  usually  contem- 
plated as  in  some  respect  types  of  what  shall  be,  even  though 
in  the  reality  there  may  be  considerable  differences  of  a 
formal  kind  between  them. 

How  much  it  is  the  native  tendency  of  the  mind  to  work 
in  this  manner,  when  itself  endeavoring  to  descry  the  events 
of  the  future,  is  evident  from  the  examples  transmitted  to  us 
by  the  most  cultivated  minds,  of  human  divination.  Thus 
the  Pythoness  in  Virgil,  when  disclosing  to  ^Eneas  what  he 
and  his  posterity  might  expect  in  Latium,  speaks  of  it  merely 
as  a  repetition  of  the  scenes  and  experiences  of  former  times. 
"  You  shall  not  want  Simois,  Xanthus,  or  the  Grecian  camp. 
Another  Achilles,  also  of  divine  offspring,  is  already  provided 
for  Latium."  *  In  like  manner  Juno,  in  the  vaticination  put 
into  her  mouth  by  Horace  respecting  the  possible  destinies 
of  Rome,  declares  that  in  the  circumstances  supposed,  "  the 
fortune  of  Troy  again  reviving,  should  again  also  be  visited 
with  terrible  disaster;  and  that  even  if  a  wall  of  brass  wera 
thrice  raised  around  it,  it  should  be  thrice  destroyed  by 
the  Greeks."*  In  such  examples  of  pretended  divination, 
no  one,  of  course,  imagines  it  to  have  been  meant  that  the 
historical  persons  and  circumstances  mentioned  were  to  be 
actually  reproduced  in  the  approaching  or  contemplated  fu- 
ture. All  we  are  to  understand  is,  that  others  of  a  like  kind 
— holding  similar  relations  to  the  parties  interested,  and  oc- 
cupying much  the  same  position — were  announced  before- 
hand to  appear;  and  so  would  render  the  future  a  sort  of 
repetition  of  the  past,  or  the  past  a  kind  of  typical  foreshadow- 
ing of  the  future. 

As  an  example  of  divine  predictions  precisely  similar  in 
form,  we  may  point  to  Hos.  viii.  13,  where  the  prophet,  speak- 
ing of  the  Lord's  purpose  to  visit  the  sins  of  Israel  with  chas- 
tisement, says,  "They  shall  return  to  Egvpt"  The  old  state 
of  bondage  and  oppression  should  come  back  upon  them ;  or 
the  things  going  to  befall  them  of  evil  should  be  after  the 
type  of  what  their  forefathers  had  experienced  under  the 
yoke  of  Pharaoh.  Yet  that  the  new  should  not  be  by  any 

1  Non  Simois  tibi,  nee  Xanthus,  nee  Dorica  castra 

Defuerint.     Alius  Latio  jam  partus  Achilles, 

Natus  et  ipse  dea.— ^En.  vi.  88-90. 
*  TTOJSB  renascens  alite  lugubri 

Fortuna  tristi  clade  iterabitur,  etc. — Carm.  lib.  iii.  3,  61-68. 
gee  also  Seneca,  Medea,  374,  etc. 


COMBINATION  OP  TYPE  WITH  PBOPHEOT.          113 

means  the  exact  repetition  of  the  old,  as  it  might  have  been 
conjectured  from  the  altered  circumstances  of  the  time,  so  it 
is  expressly  intimated  by  the  prophet  himself  a  few  verses 
afterwards,  when  he  says,  "Epnraim  shall  return  to  Egypt, 
and  they  shall  eat  unclean  things  in  Assyria  "  (ch.  ix.  3) ;  and 
again  in  ch.  xi.  5,  "He  shall  not  return  into  the  land  of  Egypt, 
but  the  Assyrian  shall  be  his  king."  He  shall  return  to  Egypt, 
and  still  not  return;  in  other  words,  the  Egypt-state  shall 
come  back  on  him,  though  the  precise  locality  and  external 
circumstances  shall  differ.  In  like  manner  Ezekiel,  in  ch.  iv., 
foretells,  in  his  own  peculiar  and  mystical  way,  the  return  of 
the  Egypt-state ;  and  in  ch.  xx.  speaks  of  the  Lord  as  going 
to  bring  the  people  again  into  the  wilderness;  but  calls  it 
"  the  wilderness  of  the  peoples,"  to  indicate  that  the  dealing 
should  be  the  same  only  in  character  with  what  Israel  of  old 
had  been  subjected  to  in  the  desert,  not  a  bald  and  formal 
repetition  of  the  story. 

Indeed,  God's  providence  knows  nothing  in  the  sacred  any 
more  than  in  the  profane  territory  of  the  world's  history,  of  a 
literal  reproduction  of  the  past.  And  when  prophecy  threw 
its  delineations  of  the  future  into  the  form  of  the  past,  and 
spake  of  the  things  yet  to  be  as  a  recurrence  of  those  that  had 
already  been,  it  simply  meant  that  the  one  should  be  after  the 
type  of  the  other,  or  should  in  spirit  and  character  resemble 
it.  By  type,  however,  in  such  examples  as  those  just  referred 
to,  is  not  to  be  understood  type  in  the  more  special  or  theo- 
logical sense  in  which  the  term  is  commonly  used  in  the  pres- 
ent discussions,  as  if  there  was  any  thing  in  the  past  that  of 
itself  gave  prophetic  intimation  of  the  coming  future.  It  is 
to  be  understood  only  in  the  general  sense  of  a  pattern-form, 
in  accordance  with  which  the  events  in  prospect  were  to  bear 
the  image  of  the  past.  The  prophetical  element,  therefore, 
did  not  properly  reside  in  the  historical  transaction  referred 
to  in  the  prophecy,  but  in  the  prophetic  word  itself,  which 
derived  its  peculiar  form  from  the  past,  and  through  that  a 
certain  degree  of  light  to  illustrate  its  import.  There  were, 
however,  other  cases  in  which  the  typical  in  circumstance  or 
action — the  typical  in  the  proper  sense — was  similarly  com- 
bined with  a  prophecy  in  word ;  and  in  them  we  have  a  two- 
fold prophetic  element — one  more  concealed  in  the  type,  and 
anotner  more  express  and  definite  in  the  word,  but  the  two 
made  to  coalesce  in  one  prediction. 

Of  this  kind  is  the  prophecy  in  Zech.  vi  12,  13,  where  the 

prophet  takes  occasion,  from  the  building  of  the  literal  temple 

in  Jerusalem  under  the  presidency  of  Joshua,  to  foretell  a 

similar  but  higher  and  more  glorious  work  in  the  future: 

VOL.  i. — 8. 


114  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTURE. 

"Behold  the  man,  whose  name  is  the  Branch;  and  He  shall 
grow  up  out  of  His  place,  and  He  shall  build  the  temple  of 
the  Lord ;  even  He  shall  build  the  temple  of  the  Lord,"  etc. 
The  building;  of  the  temple  was  itself  typical  of  the  incarna- 
tion of  God  in  the  person  of  Christ,  and  of  the  raising  up  in 
Him  of  a  spiritual  house  that  should  be  "an  habitation  of 
God  through  the  Spirit." l  But  the  prophecy  thus  involved 
in  the  action  is  expressly  uttered  in  the  prediction,  which  at 
once  explained  the  type,  and  sent  forward  the  expectations 
of  believers  toward  the  contemplated  result.  Similar,  also,  is 
the  prediction  of  Ezekiel,  in  ch.  xxxiv.  23,  in  which  the  good 
promised  in  the  future  to  a  truly  penitent  and  believing  peo- 
ple, is  connected  with  a  return  of  the  person  and  times  of 
David :  "  And  I  will  set  up  one  shepherd  over  them,  and  he 
shall  feed  them,  even  my  servant  David;  he  shall  feed  them, 
and  he  shall  be  their  shepherd."  And  the  closing  prediction 
of  Malachi:  "Behold,  I  will  send  you  Elijah  the  prophet 
before  the  coming  of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Lord," 
David's  kingdom  and  reign  in  Israel  were  from  the  first  in- 
tended to  foreshadow  those  of  Christ;  and  the  work  also  of 
Elias,  as  preparatory  to  the  Lord's  final  reckoning  with  the 
apostate  commonwealth  of  Israel,  bore  a  typical  respect  to  the 
work  of  preparation  that  was  to  go  before  the  Lord's  personal 
appearance  in  the  last  crisis  of  the  Jewish  state.  Such  might 
have  been  probably  conjectured  or  dimly  apprehended  from 
the  things  themselves;  but  it  became  comparatively  clear, 
when  it  was  announced  in  explicit  predictions,  that  a  new 
David  and  a  new  Elias  were  to  appear.  The  prophetical  ele- 
ment was  there  before  in  the  type ;  but  the  prophetical  word 
brought  it  distinctly  and  prominently  out;  yet  so  as  in  no 
respect  to  materially  change  or  complicate  the  meaning.  The 
specific  designation  of  "  David,  my  servant,"  and  "  Elijah  the 
prophet,"  are  in  each  case  alike  intended  to  indicate,  not  the 
literal  reproduction  of  the  past,  but  the  full  realization  of  all 
that  the  past  typically  foretokened  of  good.  It  virtually  told 
the  people  of  God,  that  in  their  anticipations  of  the  coming 
reality,  they  might  not  fear  to  heighten  to  the  uttermost  the 
idea  which  those  honored  names  were  fitted  to  suggest ;  their 
anticipations  would  be  amply  borne  out  by  the  event,  in  which 
still  higher  prophecy  than  Elijah's,  and  unspeakably  nobler 
service  than  David's,  was  to  be  found  in  reserve  for  the 
Church.1 

«  John  iL  19;  Matt.  xvi.  18;  Eph.  ii.  20,  22. 

*  Those  who  contend  for  the  actual  reappearance  of  Elijah,  because  the 
epithet  of  "the  prophet,"  they  think,  fixes  down  the  meaning  to  the  persona] 
Elijah,  may  as  well  contend  for  the  reappearance  of  David  as  the  future  king 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PBOPHEOT.          115 

III.  We  pass  on  to  our  third  supposition,  which  may  seem 
to  be  nearly  identical  with  the  last,  yet  belongs  to  a  stage 
further  in  advance.  It  is  that  the  typical,  not  expressly  and 
formally,  but  in  its  essential  relations  and  principles,  might 
be  embodied  in  an  accompanying  prediction,  which  foretold 
things  corresponding  in  nature,  but  of  higher  moment  and 
wider  import.  So  far  this  supposed  case  coincides  with  the 
last,  that  in  that  also  the  things  predicted  might  be,  and,  if 
referring  to  Gospel  times,  actually  were,  higher  and  greater 
than  those  of  the  type.  But  it  diners,  in  that  this  superiority 
did  not  there,  as  it  aoes  here,  appear  in  the  terms  of  the  pre- 
diction, which  simply  announced  the  recurrence  of  the  type. 
And  it  differs  still  further,  in  that  there  the  type  was  expressly 
and  formally  introduced  into  the  prophecy,  while  here  it  is 
tacitly  assumed,  and  only  its  essential  relations  and  principles 
are  applied  to  the  delineation  of  some  things  analogous  and 
related,  but  conspicuously  loftier  and  greater.  In  this  case, 
then,  the  typical  transactions  furnishing  the  materials  for 
the  prophetical  delineation,  must  necessarily  form  the  back- 
ground, and  the  explanatory  prediction  the  foreground,  of 
the  picture.  The  words  of  the  prophet  must  describe  not 
the  typical  past,  but  the  corresponding  and  grander  future, 
— describe  it,  however,  under  the  form  of  the  past,  and  in 
connection  with  the  same  fundamental  views  of  the  divine 
character  and  government.  So  that  there  must  here  also  be 
but  one  sense,  though  a  twofold  prediction:  one  more  vague 
and  indefinite,  standing  in  the  type  or  prophetic  action ;  the 
other  more  precise  and  definite,  furnished  by  the  prophetic 
word,  and  directly  pointing  to  the  greater  things  to  come. 

The  supposition  now  made  is  actually  verified  in  a  con- 
siderable number  of  prophetical  scriptures.  Connected  with 
them,  and  giving  rise  to  them,  there  were  certain  circum- 
stances and  events  so  ordered  by  God  as  to  be  in  a  greater  or 
less  degree  typical  of  others  under  the  Gospel.  And  there 
was  a  prophecy  linking  the  two  together,  by  taking  up  the 
truths  and  relations  embodied  in  the  type,  and  expanding 
them  so  as  to  embrace  the  higher  and  still  future  things  of 
God's  kingdom, — thus  at  once  indicating  the  typical  design 
of  the  past,  and  announcing  in  appropriate  terms  the  coining 
events  of  the  future. 

for  "David,  my  servant,"  is  as  distinctive  an  appellation  of  the  one,  as  "Eli- 
jah the  prophet "  of  the  other.  Bat  in  reality  they  are  thus  specified  as  both 
exhibiting  the  highest  known  ideal — the  one  of  king-like  service,  the  other  of 
prophetic  work  as  preparatory  to  a  divine  manifestation.  And  in  thinking  of 
them,  the  people  could  get  the  most  correct  view  they  were  capable  of  enter- 
taining of  the  predicted  future. 


118  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Let  us  point,  in  the  first  instance,  to  an  illustrative  ex 
ample,  in  which  the  typical  element,  indeed,  was  compara 
tively  vague  and  general,  but  which  has  the  advantage  ol 
being  the  first,  if  we  mistake  not,  of  this  species  of  prophecy 
and  in  some  measure  gave  the  tone  to  those  that  followed 
The  example  we  refer  to  is  the  song  of  Hannah,1  indited  by 
that  pious  woman  under  the  inspiration  of  God,  on  the  occa 
sion  of  the  birth  of  Samuel.  The  history  leaves  no  room  to 
doubt  that  this  was  its  immediate  occasion;  yet,  if  viewed  in 
reference  to  that  occasion  alone,  how  comparatively  trifling 
is  the  theme !  How  strange  and  magniloquent  the  expres- 
sions !  Hannah  speaks  of  her  "  mouth  being  enlarged  over 
her  enemies,"  of  "the  bows  of  the  mighty  men  being  broken," 
of  the  "  barren  bearing  seven,"  of  the  "  full  hiring  themselves 
out  for  bread,"  and  other  things  of  a  like  nature, — all  how 
far  exceeding,  and  we  might  even  say  caricaturing,  the  occa- 
sion, if  it  has  respect  merely  to  the  fact  of  a  woman,  hitherto 
reputed  barren,  becoming  at  length  the  joyful  mother  of  a 
child!  Were  the  song  an  example  of  the  inflated  style  not  un- 
common in  Eastern  poetry,  we  might  not  be  greatly  startled 
at  such  grotesque  exaggerations ;  but  being  a  portion  of  that 
word  which  is  all  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  is  as  sil- 
ver tried  in  a  furnace,  we  must  banish  from  our  mind  any 
idea  of  extravagance  or  conceit.  Indeed,  from  the  whole 
strain  and  character  of  the  song,  it  is  evident  that,  though 
occasioned  by  the  birth  of  Samuel,  it  was  so  far  from  having 
exclusive  reference  to  that  event,  that  the  things  concerning 
it  formed  one  only  of  a  numerous  and  important  class  per- 
vading the  providence  of  God,  and  closely  connected  with 
His  highest  purposes.  In  a  spiritual  respect  it  was  a  time 
of  mournful  barrenness  and  desolation  in  Israel :  "  the  word 
of  the  Lord  was  precious,  there  was  no  open  vision " ;  and 
iniquity  was  so  rampant  as  even  to  be  lifting  up  its  insolent 
front,  and  practicing  its  foul  abominations  in  the  very  pre- 
cincts of  tne  sanctuary.  How  natural,  then,  for  Hannah, 
when  she  had  got  that  child  of  desire  and  hope,  which  she 
had  devoted  from  his  birth  as  a  Nazarite  to  the  Lord's  ser- 
vice, and  feeling  her  soul  moved  by  a  prophetic  impulse,  to 
regard  herself  as  specially  raised  up  to  be  "a  sign  and  a 
wonder"  to  Israel,  and  to  do  so  particularly  in  respect  to 
that  principle  in  the  divine  government,  which  had  so  strik- 
ingly developed  itself  in  her  experience,  but  whicn  was  des- 
tined to  receive  its  grandest  manifestation  in  the  work  and 
kingdom  which  were  to  be  more  peculiarly  the  Lord's ! 

1 1  Sam.  ii.  1-10. 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PKOPHECY.          117 

Hence,  instead  of  looking  exclusively  to  her  individual  case, 
and  marking  the  operation  of  the  Lord's  hand  in  what  sim- 
ply concerned  her  personal  history,  she  wings  her  flight  aloft, 
and  takes  a  comprehensive  survey  of  the  general  scheme  of 
God ;  noting  especially,  as  she  proceeds,  the  workings  of  that 
pure  and  gracious  sovereignty  which  delights  to  exalt  a  hum- 
ble piety,  while  it  pours  contempt  on  the  proud  and  rebellious. 
And  as  every  exercise  of  this  principle  is  but  part  of  a  grand 
series  which  culminates  in  tne  dispensation  of  Christ,  her 
song  runs  out  at  the  close  into  a  sublime  and  glowing  de- 
lineation of  the  final  results  to  be  achieved  by  it  in  connec- 
tion with  His  righteous  administration.  "Tne  adversaries 
of  the  Lord  shall  oe  broken  to  pieces ;  out  of  heaven  shall  He 
thunder  upon  them:  the  Lord  shall  judge  the  ends  of  the 
earth ;  ana  He  shall  give  strength  unto  His  king,  and  exalt 
the  horn  of  His  anointed."1 

This  song  of  Hannah,  then,  plainly  consists  of  two  parts, 
in  the  one  of  which  only — the  concluding  portion — it  is  prop- 
erly prophetical.  The  preceding  stanzas  are  taken  up  with 
unfolding,  from  past  and  current  events,  the  grand  spiritual 
idea :  the  closing  ones  carry  it  forward  in  beautiful  and  strik- 
ing application  to  the  affairs  of  Messiah's  kingdom.  In  the 
earlier  part  it  presents  to  us  the  germ  of  sacred  principle  un- 
folded in  the  type ;  in  the  latter,  it  exhibits  this  rising  to  its 
ripened  growth  and  perfection  in  the  final  exaltation  and 
triumph  of  the  King  of  Zion.  The  two  differ  in  respect  to 
the  line  of  things  immediately  contemplated, — the  facts  of 
history  in  the  one  case,  in  the  other  the  anticipations  of 
prophecy;  but  they  agree  in  being  alike  pervaded  by  one 
and  the  same  great  principle,  which,  after  floating  down  the 
stream  of  earthly  providences,  is  represented  as  ultimately 
settling  and  developing  itself  with  resistless  energy  in  the 
affairs  of  Messiah's  kingdom.  And  as  if  to  remove  every 
shadow  of  doubt  as  to  this  being  the  purport  and  design  ot 

1  The  last  clause  might  as  well,  and  indeed  better,  have  been  rendered, 
"Exalt  the  horn  of  His  Messiah."  Even  the  Jewish  interpreter,  Kimchi, 
understands  it  as  spoken  directly  of  the  Messiah,  and  the  Targum  para- 
phrases, "He  shall  multiply  the  kingdom  of  Messiah."  It  is  the  first  pas- 
sage of  Scripture  where  the  word  occurs  in  its  more  distinctive  sense,  and 
is  used  as  a  synonym  for  the  consecrated  or  divine  king.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  Hannah  should  have  been  the  first  to  introduce  this  epithet, 
and  to  point  so  directly  to  the  destined  head  of  the  divine  kingdom;  it  will 
even  be  inexplicable,  unless  we  understand  her  to  have  been  raised  up  for  a 
"  sign  and  a  wonder  "  to  Israel,  and  to  have  spoken  as  she  was  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  But  the  other  expressions,  especially  "the  adversaries  of  the 
Lord  shall  be  destroyed,  and  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  be  judged,"  show 
that  it  really  was  of  the  kingdom  as  possessed  of  such  a  head  that  she  spoke. 
And  the  idea  of  Grotius  and  the  Rationalists,  that  she  referred  in  the  first  in- 
stance to  Saul,  can  not  be  sustained 


118  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Hannah's  song,  when  we  open  the  record  of  that  better  era, 
which  she  but  descried  in  the  remote  distance,  we  find  the 
Virgin  Mary,  in  her  song  of  praise  at  the  announcement  of 
Messiah's  birth,  re-echoing  the  sentiments,  and  sometimes 
even  repeating  the  very  words,  of  the  mother  of  Samuel: 
"My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord,  and  my  spirit  hath  re- 
joiced in  God  my  Saviour.  For  He  hath  regarded  the  low 
estate  of  His  handmaiden.  He  hath  showed  strength  with 
His  arm :  He  hath  scattered  the  proud  in  the  imagination  of 
their  hearts.  He  hath  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  seats, 
and  exalted  them  of  low  degree.  He  hath  filled  the  hungry 
with  good  things ;  and  the  rich  He  hath  sent  empty  away. 
He  hath  holpen  His  servant  Israel,  in  remembrance  of  His 
mercy;  as  He  spake  to  our  fathers,  to  Abraham,  and  to  his 
seed  forever."  Why  should  the  Spirit,  breathing  at  such  a 
time  in  the  soul  of  Mary,  have  turned  her  thoughts  so  nearly 
into  the  channel  that  had  been  struck  out  ages  before  by  the 
pious  Hannah  ?  Or  why  should  the  circumstances  connected 
with  the  birth  of  Hannah's  Nazarite  offspring  have  proved  the 
occasion  of  strains  which  so  distinctly  pointed  to  the  mani- 
festation of  the  King  of  Glory,  and  so  closely  harmonized 
with  those  actually  sung  in  celebration  of  the  event?  Doubt- 
less to  mark  the  connection  really  subsisting  between  the 
two.  It  is  the  Spirit's  own  intimation  of  His  ulterior  design 
in  transactions  long  since  past,  and  testimonies  delivered 
centuries  before — namely,  to  herald  the  advent  of  Messiah, 
and  familiarize  the  children  of  the  kingdom  with  the  essen- 
tial character  of  the  coming  dispensation.1 

Hannah's  song  was  the  first  specimen  of  that  combination 
of  prophecy  with  type  which  is  now  under  consideration ;  but 
it  was  soon  followed  by  others,  in  which  both  the  prophecy 

1  The  view  now  given  of  Hannah's  song  presents  it  in  a  much  higher,  as 
we  conceive  it  does  also  in  a  truer,  light,  than  that  exhibited  by  Bishop  Jebb, 
who  speaks  of  it  in  a  style  that  seems  scarcely  compatible  with  any  proper 
belief  in  its  inspiration.  The  song  appears,  in  his  estimation,  to  have  been 
the  mere  effusion  of  Hannah's  private  and,  in  great  part,  unsanctified  feel- 
ings. "  We  can  not  but  feel,"  he  says,  "that  her  exultation  partook  largely 
of  a  spirit  far  beneath  that  which  enjoins  the  love  of  our  enemies,  and  which 
forbids  personal  exultation  over  a  fallen  foe."  He  regards  it  as  "  unquestion- 
able, that  previous  sufferings  had  not  thoroughly  subdued  her  temper, — that 
she  could  not  suppress  the  workings  of  a  rotaliative  spirit, — and  was  thus  led 
to  dwell,  not  on  the  peaceful  glories  of  his  (Samuel's)  priestly  and  prophetic 
rule,  but  on  his  future  triumphs  over  the  Philistine  armies'  (Sacred  Litera- 
ture, p.  397).  If  such  were  indeed  the  character  of  Hannah's  song,  we  may 
be  assured  it  would  not  have  been  so  closely  imitated  by  the  blessed  Virgin. 
But  it  is  manifestly  wrong  to  regard  Hannah  as  speaking  of  her  merely  per- 
sonal enemies, — her  language  would  otherwise  be  chargeable  with  vicious  ex- 
trawgance,  as  well  as  unsanctified  feeling.  She  identifies  herself  throughout 
with  the  Lord's  cause  and  people;  and  it  is  simply  her  zeal  for  righteousness 
which  expresses  itself  in  a  spirit  of  exultation  over  prostrate  enemies. 


COMBINATION   OP  TYPE  WITH  PROPHECY.          119 

was  more  extended,  and  the  typical  element  in  the  transac- 
tions that  gave  rise  to  it  was  more  marked  and  specific.  The 
examples  we  refer  to  are  to  be  found  in  the  Messianic  psalms, 
which  also  resemble  the  song  of  Hannah  in  being  of  a  lyrical 
character,  and  thence  admitting  of  a  freer  play  of  feeling  on 
the  part  of  the  individual  writer  than  could  fitly  be  introduced 
into  simple  prophecy.  But  this,  again,  principally  arose  from 
the  close  connection  typically  between  the  present  and  the 
future,  whereby  the  feelings  originated  by  the  one  naturally 
incorporated  themselves  with  the  delineation  of  the  other. 
And  as  it  was  the  institution  of  the  temporal  kingdom  in  the 
person  and  house  of  David  which  here  formed  the  ground 
and  the  occasion  of  the  prophetic  delineation,  there  was  no 
part  of  the  typical  arrangements  under  the  ancient  dispensa- 
tion which  more  fully  admitted,  or,  to  prevent  misapprehen- 
sion, more  obviously  required,  the  accompaniment  of  a  series 
of  Ivrical  prophecies  such  as  that  contained  in  the  Messianic 
psalms. 

For  the  institution  of  a  temporal  kingdom  in  the  hands  of 
an  Israelitish  family  involved  a  very  material  change  in  the 
external  framework  of  the  theocracy;  and  a  change  that  of 
itself  was  fitted  to  rivet  the  minds  01  the  people  more  to  the 
earthly  and  visible,  and  take  them  off  from  the  heavenly  and 
eternal.  The  constitution  under  which  they  were  placed  be- 
fore the  appointment  of'a  king,  though  it  did  not  absolutely 
preclude  such  an  appointment,  yet  seemed  as  if  it  would  rather 
suffer  than  be  improved  by  so  broad  and  palpable  an  introduc- 
tion of  the  merely  human  element.  It  was  till  then  a  the- 
ocracy in  the  strictest  sense ;  a  commonwealth  that  had  no 
recognized  head  but  God,  and  placed  every  thing  essentially 
connected  with  life  and  well-being  under  His  immediate  pres- 
idence  and  direction.  The  land  of  the  covenant  was  em- 
phatically God's  land l — the  people  that  dwelt  in  it  were  His 
peculiar  property  and  heritage,8  the  laws  which  they  were 
bound  to  obey  were  His  statutes  and  judgments,*  and  the 
persons  appointed  to  interpret  and  administer  them  were  His 
representatives,  and  on  this  account  even  sometimes  bore  His 
name.4  It  was  the  peculiar  and  distinguishing  glory  of  Israel 
as  a  nation,  that  they  stood  in  this  near  relationship  to  God, 
and  that  which  more  especially  called  forth  the  rapturous 
eulogy  of  Moses,*  "Happy  art  thou,  O  Israel;  who  is  like 
unto  thee !  The  eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath 

'  Lev.  xxv.  23;  Ps.  x.  16;  Isa.  xiv.  25;  Jer.  ii.  7,  etc. 

*  Ex.  xix.  5;  Ps.  xciv.  5;  Jer.  ii.  7;  Joel  iii.  2. 

3  Ex.  xv.  26,  xviii.  16,  etc.  <  Ex.  *rii.  28;  Ps.  iTrrii.  & 

*  Dent  xxxiii.  27,  29. 


120  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCRIPTUKE. 

are  the  everlasting  arms."  It  was  a  glory,  however,  whicfc 
the  people  themselves  were  too  carnal  for  the  most  part  to  esti- 
mate aright,  and  of  which  they  never  appeared  more  insen- 
sible than  when  they  sought  to  be  like  the  Gentiles,  by  having 
a  king  appointed  over  them.  For  what  was  it  but,  in  effect, 
to  seek  that  they  might  lose  their  peculiar  distinction  among 
the  nations  ?  that  God  might  retire  to  a  greater  distance  from 
them,  and  might  no  longer  be  their  immediate  guardian  and 
sovereign  ? 

Nor  was  this  the  only  evil  likely  to  arise  out  of  the  pro- 
posed change.  Every  thing  under  the  Old  Covenant  bore 
reference  to  the  future  and  more  perfect  dispensation  of  the 
Gospel ;  and  the  ultimate  reason  of  any  important  feature  or 
material  change  in  respect  to  the  former,  can  never  be  un- 
derstood without  taking  into  account  the  bearing  it  might 
have  on  the  future  state  and  prospects  of  men  under  the 
Gospel.  But  how  could  any  change  in  the  constitution  of 
ancient  Israel,  and  especially  such  a  change  as  the  people 
contemplated,  when  they  desired  a  king  after  the  manner 
of  the  Gentiles,  be  adopted  without  altering  matters  in  this 
respect  to  the  worse  ?  The  dispensation  of  the  Gospel  was  to 
be,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  the  "  kingdom  of  heaven,"  or  of  God, 
having  for  its  high  end  and  aim  the  establishment  of  a  near 
and  blessed  intercourse  between  God  and  men.  It  attains  to 
its  consummation  when  the  vision  seen  by  St.  John,  and  de- 
scribed after  the  pattern  of  the  constitution  actually  set  up  in 
the  wilderness,  comes  into  fulfilment — when  "  the  tabernacle 
of  God  is  with  men,  and  He  dwells  with  them."  Of  this  con- 
summation it  was  a  striking  and  impressive  image  that  was 
presented  in  the  original  structure  of  the  Israelitish  common- 
wealth, wherein  God  Himself  sustained  the  office  of  king,  and 
had  His  peculiar  residence  and  appropriate  manifestations 
of  glory  in  the  midst  of  His  people.  And  when  they,  in 
their  carnal  affection  for  a  worldly  institute,  clamored  for  an 
earthly  sovereign,  they  not  only  discovered  a  lamentable  in- 
difference towards  what  constituted  their  highest  honor,  but 
betrayed  also  a  want  of  discernment  and  faith  in  regard  to 
God's  prospective  and  ultimate  design  in  connection  with 
their  provisional  economy.  They  gave  conclusive  proof  that 
"they  did  not  see  to  the  end  of  that  which  was  to  be  abol- 
ished," and  preferred  a  request  which,  if  granted  according 
to  their  expectation,  would  in  a  most  important  respect  have 
defeated  the  object  of  their  theocratic  constitution. 

We  need  not,  therefore,  be  surprised  that  God  should  have 
expressed  His  dissatisfaction  with  the  proposal  made  by  the 
people  for  the  appointment  of  a  king  to  them,  and  should 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PEOPHECY.          121 

have  regarded  it  as  a  substantial  rejection  of  Himself,  and  a 
desire  that  He  should  not  reign  over  them.1  But  why,  then, 
did  He  afterwards  accede  to  it?  And  why  did  He  make 
choice  of  the  things  connected  with  it,  as  a  historical  occa- 
sion and  a  typical  ground  for  shadowing  forth  the  nature  and 
glories  of  Messiah's  kingdom?  The  divine  procedure  in  this, 
though  apparently  capricious,  was  in  reality  marked  by  the 
highest  wisdom,  and  affords  one  of  the  finest  examples  to  be 
found  in  Old  Testament  history  of  that  overruling  providence, 
by  which  God  so  often  averts  the  evil  which  men's  devices 
are  fitted  to  produce,  and  renders  them  subservient  to  the 
greatest  good. 

The  appointment  of  a  king  as  the  earthly  head  of  the  com- 
monwealth, we  have  said,  was  not  absolutely  precluded  by  the 
theocratic  constitution.  It  was  from  the  first  contemplated 
by  Moses  as  a  thing  which  the  people  would  probably  desire, 
and  in  which  they  were  not  to  be  gainsayed,  but  were  only 
to  be  directed  into  the  proper  method  of  reaching  the  end  in 
view.*  It  was  even  possible — if  the  matter  was  rightly  gone 
about,  and  the  divine  sanction  obtained  respecting  it — to  turn 
it  to  profitable  account,  by  familiarizing  the  minds  of  men 
with  what  was  destined  to  form  the  grand  feature  of  the 
Messiah's  kingdom — the  personal  indwelling  of  the  divine  in 
the  human  nature — and  so  to  acquire  for  it  the  character  of 
an  important  step  in  the  preparatory  arrangements  for  the 
kingdom.  This  is  what  was  actually  done.  After  the  peo- 
ple had  been  solemnly  admonished  of  their  guilt  in  request- 
ing the  appointment  of  a  king  on  their  worldly  principles, 
they  were  allowed  to  raise  one  of  their  number  to  the  throne 
— not,  however,  as  absolute  and  independent  sovereign,  but 
only  as  the  deputy  of  Jehovah ;  that  he  might  simply  rule  in 
the  name,  and  in  subordination  to  the  will,  of  God.*  For 


this  reason  his  throne  was  called  "the  throne  of  tLt  Lord,"4 
on  which,  as  the  Queen  of  Sheba  expressed  it  to  Solomon,  he 
was  " set  to  be  king  for  the  Lord  his  God; " 8  and  the  kingly 
government  itself  was  afterwards  designated  "  the  kingdom 
of  the  Lord."  *  For  the  same  reason,  no  doubt,  it  was  'that 
Samuel  "wrote  in  a  book  the  manner  of  the  kingdom,  and 
laid  it  up  before  the  Lord ; " '  that  the  testimony  in  behalf 
of  its  derived  and  vicegerent  nature  might  be  perpetuated. 
And  to  render  the  divine  purpose  in  this  respect  manifest  to 
all  who  had  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to  hear,  the  Lord  allowed 
the  choice  first  to  fall  on  one  who — as  the  representative  of 

1  1  Sam.  viii  7.  *  Deut  rrii.  14-20. 

»  See  Warburton's  Legation  of  Moats,  B.  v.  &  3.  «  1  Chron.  xrix,  2& 

»  2  Chron.  ix.  8.  «  2  Chron.  xiiL  8.  »  1  Sam.  x.  25. 


122  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

the  people's  earthly  wisdom  and  prowess— was  little  disposed 
to  rule  in  humble  subordination  to  the  will  and  authority  of 
Heaven,  and  was  therefore  supplanted  by  another  who  should 
act  as  God's  representative,  and  bear  distinctively  the  name 
of  His  servant."1 

It  was,  therefore,  in  this  second  person,  David,  that  the 
kingly  administration  in  Israel  properly  began.  He  was  the 
root  and  founder  of  the  kingdom — as  a  kingdom,  in  which 
the  divine  and  human  stood  first  in  an  official,  as  they  were 
ultimately  to  stand  in  a  personal,  union.  And  to  make  the 
preparatory  and  the  final  in  this  respect  properly  harmonize 
and  adapt  themselves  to  each  other,  the  Lord,  in  the  first 
instance,  ordered  matters  connected  with  the  institution  of 
the  kingly  government,  so  as  to  render  the  beginning  an 
image  of  the  end — typical  throughout  of  Messiah's  work  and 
kingdom.  And  then,  lest  the  typical  bearing  of  things  should 
be  lost  sight  of  in  consequence  of  their  present  interest  or  im- 
portance, He  gave  in  connection  with  them  the  word  of 
prophecy,  which,  proceeding  on  the  ground  of  their  typical 
import,  pointed  the  expectations  of  the  Church  to  correspond- 
ing but  far  higher  and  greater  things  still  to  come.  In  this 
way,  what  must  otherwise  have  tended  to  veil  the  purpose  of 
God,  and  obstruct  the  main  design  of  His  preparatory  dispen- 
sation, was  turned  into  one  of  the  most  effective  means  of  re- 
vealing and  promoting  it.  The  earthly  head,  that  now  under 
God  stood  over  the  members  of  the  commonwealth,  instead 
of  overshadowing  His  authority,  only  presented  this  more 
distinctly  to  their  view,  and  served  as  a  stepping-stone  to 
faith,  in  enabling  it  to  rise  nearer  to  the  apprehension  of  that 
personal  indwelling  of  Godhead,  which  was  to  constitute  the 
foundation  and  the  glory  of  the  Gospel  dispensation.  For  oc- 
casion was  taken  to  unfold  the  more  glorious  future  in  its 
principal  features  with  an  air  of  individuality  and  distinct- 
ness, with  a  variety  of  detail  and  vividness  of  coloring,  not 
to  be  met  with  in  any  other  portions  of  prophetic  Scripture. 

We  refer  for  illustration  to  a  single  example  of  this  com- 
bination of  prophecy  with  type  (others  will  oe  noticed,  and 
in  a  somewhat  different  connection,  in  the  Appendix) — the 
second  Psalm.  The  production  as  to  form  is  a  kind  of  in- 
augural hymn,  intended  to  celebrate  the  appointment  and 
final  triumph  of  Jehovah's  king.  The  heathen  nations  are 
represented  as  foolishly  opposing  it  (vers.  1,  2) ;  they  agree 
among  themselves,  if  the  appointment  should  be  made,  prac- 

1  This  appellation  is  used  of  David  far  more  frequently  than  of  any  other 
person.  Upwards  of  thirty  times  it  is  expressly  spoken  of  David;  and  in  the 
Psalms  he  is  ever  presenting  himself  in  the  character  of  the  Lord's  servant 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PROPHECY.          125 

tically  to  disown  and  resist  it  (ver.  3) ;  the  Almighty,  how- 
ever, perseveres  in  His  purpose,  scorning  the  rebellious  op- 
position of  such  impotent  adversaries  (ver.  4);  the  eternal 
decree  goes  forth,  that  the  anointed  King  is  enthroned  on 
Zion ;  that,  being  Jehovah's  Son,  He  is  made  the  heir  of  al1 
things,  even  to  the  uttermost  bounds  of  the  habitable  glob  j 
(vers.  5-9).  And  in  consideration  of  what  has  thus  been  d  > 
creed  and  ratified  in  heaven,  the  psalm  concludes  with  a  we  rd 
of  friendly  counsel  and  admonition  to  earthly  potentates  and 
rulers,  exhorting  them  to  submit  in  time  to  the  sway  of  this 
glorious  King,  and  forewarning  them  of  the  inevitable  ruin 
of  resistance.  That  in  all  this  we  can  trace  the  lines  of  Mes- 
siah's history,  is  obvious  at  a  glance.  Even  the  old  Jewish 
doctors,  as  we  learn  by  the  quotation  from  Solomon  Jarchi, 

f'ven  by  Venema,  agreed  that  "it  should  be  expounded  of 
ing  Messiah";  but  he  adds,  "In  accordance  with  the  literal 
sense,  and  that  it  may  be  used  against  the  heretics  (i.  e., 
Christians),  it  is  proper  to  explain  it  as  relating  to  David 
himself."  Strange  that  this  idea,  the  offspring  of  rabbinical 
artifice,  seeking  to  withdraw  an  argument  from  the  cause  of 
Christianity,  should  have  so  generally  commended  itself  to 
Christian  interpreters !  But  if  by  literal  sense  is  to  be  under- 
stood the  plain  and  natural  import  of  the  words  employed, 
what  ground  is  there  for  such  an  interpretation  ?  David  was 
not  opposed  in  his  elevation  to  the  throne  of  Israel  by  heathen 
nations  or  rulers,  who  knew  and  cared  comparatively  little 
about  it;  nor  was  his  being  anointed  king  coincident  with 
his  being  set  on  the  holy  hill  of  Zion ;  nor,  after  being  estab- 
lished in  the  kingdom,  did  he  ever  dream  of  pressing  any 
claims  of  dominion  on  the  kings  and  rulers  of  the  earth :  his 
wars  were  uniformly  wars  of  defence,  and  not  of  conquest. 
So  palpable,  indeed,  is  the  discordance  between  the  lines  of 
David's  history  and  the  lofty  terms  of  the  psalm,  that  the 
opinion  which  ascribes  it  in  the  literal  sense  to  David,  may 
now  be  regarded  as  comparatively  antiquated ;  and  some  even 
of  those  who  formerly  espoused  it  (such  as  Rosenmuller),  have 
at  length  owned  that  "it  can  not  well  be  understood  as  ap- 
plying either  to  David  or  to  Solomon,  much  less  to  any  of 
the  later  Hebrew  kings,  and  that  the  judgment  of  the  more 
ancient  Hebrews  is  to  be  followed,  who  considered  it  as  a 
celebration  of  the  mighty  King  whom  they  expected  under 
the  name  of  the  Messiah.' 

But  has  the  psalm,  then,  no  connection  with  the  life  and 
kingdom  of  David?  Unquestionably  it  has;  and  a  connec- 
tion so  close,  that  what  took  place  in  him  was  at  once  the 
beginning  and  the  image  of  what,  amid  higher  relations,  and 


124  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPT  UBE. 

on  a  more  extended  scale,  was  to  be  accomplished  in  the 
subject  of  the  psalm.  While  the  terms  in  which  the  King 
arid  the  kingdom  there  celebrated  are  spoken  of,  stretch  far 
above  the  line  of  things  that  belonged  to  David,  they  yel 
bear  throughout  the  mark  and  impress  of  these.  In  both 
alike  we  see  a  sovereign  choice  and  fixed  appointment,  on  the 
part  of  God,  to  the  office  of  king  in  the  fullest  sense  among 
men — an  opposition  of  the  most  violent  and  heathenish  na- 
ture to  withstand  and  nullify  the  appointment — the  gradual 
and  successive  overthrow  of  all  the  obstacles  raised  against 
the  purpose  of  Heaven,  and  the  extension  of  the  sphere  of 
empire  (still  partly  future  in  the  case  of  Messiah')  till  it 
reached  the  limits  of  the  divine  grant.  The  lines  oi  history 
in  the  two  cases  are  entirely  parallel ;  there  is  all  the  corre- 
spondence we  expect  between  type  and  antitype;  but  the 
prophecy  which  marks  the  connection  between  them,  while 
it  was  occasioned  by  the  purpose  of  God  respecting  David, 
and  derived  from  his  history  the  particular  mould  in  which  it 
was  cast,  was  applicable  only  to  Him  who,  with  the  proper- 
ties of  a  human  nature  and  an  earthly  throne,  was  to  possess 
those  also  of  the  heavenly  and  divine. 

We  shall  not  here  go  further  into  detail  respecting  this 
class. of  prophecies,  which  belong  chiefly  to  the  rsalms;  but 
we  must  remark,  that  as  it  was  their  object  to  explain  the 
typical  character  of  David's  calling  and  kingdom,  and  to 
connect  this  with  the  higher  things  to  come,  we  may  reason- 
ably expect  there  will  be  some  portions  in  the  Messianic 
psalms  which  are  alike  applicable  to  type  and  antitype ;  and 
also  entire  psalms,  in  which  there  may  be  room  for  doubting 
to  which  of  the  two  they  may  most  fitly  be  referred.  In 
some  the  superhuman  and  divine  properties  of  the  Messiah's 
person  and  kingdom  are  so  broadly  and  characteristically 
delineated  (as  in  Ps.  ii.  xxii.  xlv.  Ixxii.  ex.),  that  it  is  im- 
possible, by  any  fair  interpretation  of  the  language,  to  un- 
derstand the  description  of  another  than  Christ.  But  there 
are  others  in  which  the  merely  human  elements  are  so 
strongly  depicted  (such  as  Ps.  xl.  Ixix.  cixA  that  not  a  few 
of  the  traits  might  doubtless  be  found  in  the  bearer  also  of 
the  earthly  kingdom;  while  still  the  excessive  darkness  of 
the  picture,  as  a  whole,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  magnitude 
of  tne  results  and  interests  connected  with  it,  on  the  other, 
shut  us  up  to  the  conclusion  that  Christ,  in  His  work  of  hu- 
miliation and  His  kingdom  of  blessing  and  glory,  is  the  real 
subject  of  the  prophecy.  Viewed  as  an  entire  and  prospec- 
tive delineation,  the  theme  is  still  one,  and  the  sense  not  mani- 
fold, but  simple.  There  are  again  others,  however,  of  which 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PROPHECY.          126 

Ps.  xli.  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen,  in  which  the  delineation 
throughout  is  as  applicable  to  the  bearer  of  the  earthly  as 
to  that  of  the  heavenly  kingdom ;  so  that,  if  regarded  as  a 
prophecy  at  all,  it  can  only  be  in  the  way  explained  under 
our  first  supposition,  as  a  historical  description  of  things 
that  happened  under  typical  relations,  from  which  they  de- 
rived a  prophetical  element 

Such  varieties  are  no  more  than  what  might  have  been 
expected  in  the  class  of  sacred  lyrics  now  under  considera- 
tion ;  and  the  rather  so,  as  they  were  composed  for  the  devo- 
tional use  of  the  Church  at  a  time  when  she  required  as  well 
to  be  refreshed  and  strengthened  by  the  faith  of  the  typical 
past,  as  to  be  cheered  and  animated  by  the  hope  of  the  still 
grander  antitypical  future.  It  was  necessary  that  she  should 
be  taught  so  to  look  for  tho  one  as  not  to  lose  sight  of  the 
other ;  out  rather,  in  what  had  already  occurred,  to  find  the 
root  and  promise  of  what  was  to  be  hereafter.  The  word  of 
Nathan  to  David,1  which  properly  began  the  series,  and.  laid 
the  foundation  of  further  developments,  presented  the  matter 
in  this  light.  David  is  there  associated  with  his  filial  suc- 
cessor, as  alike  connected  with  the  institution  of  the  king- 
dom in  its  primary  and  inferior  aspect;  and  the  high  honor 
was  conceded  to  his  house  of  furnishing  the  royal  dynasty 
that  was  destined  to  preside  forever  in  God's  name  over  the 
affairs  of  men.  But  this  forever,  emphatically  used  in  the 
promise,  evidently  pointed  to  a  time  when  the  relations  of  the 
kingdom,  in  its  then  provisional  and  circumscribed  form, 
should  give  way  to  others  immensely  greater  and  higher.  It 
pointed  to  a  commingling  of  the  divine  and  human,  the 
heavenly  and  the  earthly,  in  another  manner  than  could  pos- 
sibly be  realized  in  the  case  either  of  David  himself,  or  of  any 
ordinary  descendant  from  his  loins.  And  it  became  one  of 
the  leading  objects  of  David's  prophetical  calling,  and  of  those 
who  were  his  immediate  successors  in  the  prophetical  func- 
tion, to  unfold,  after  the  manner  already  described,  something 
of  that  ulterior  purpose  of  Heaven,  which,  though  included, 
was  still  but  obscurely  indicated,  in  the  fundamental  prophecy 
of  Nathan.1 

1  2  Sam.  vil  4-16. 

8  According  to  the  view  now  given,  there  is  no  need  for  that  alternating 
process  which  is  so  commonly  resorted  to  in  the  explanation  of  Nathan's 
prophecy,  by  which  this  one  part  is  made  to  refer  to  Solomon  and  his  imme- 
diate successors,  and  that  other  to  Christ.  There  is  no  need  for  thus  formally 
splitting  it  up  into  portions,  each  pointing  to  different  quarters.  The  proph- 
ecy is  to  be  taken  as  an  organic  whole,  as  the  kingdom  also  is  of  which  it 
speaks.  David  reigned  in  the  Lord's  name,  and  the  Lord,  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  was  born  to  occupy  David's  throne— a  mutual  uterconnection.  The 


126  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBTPTUBE. 

IV.  But  we  have  still  to  notice  another  conceivable  com- 
bination of  type  with  prophecy.  It  is  possible,  we  said,  that 
the  typical  transactions  might  themselves  be  still  future ;  and 
might,  in  a  prophetic  word,  be  partly  described,  partly  pre- 
supposed, as  a  ground  for  the  delineation  of  other  things  still 
more  distant,  in  respect  to  which  they  were  to  hold  a  typical 
relation.  The  difference  between  this  and  the  last  supposi- 
tion is  quite  immaterial,  in  so  far  as  any  principle  is  involved. 
It  makes  no  essential  change  in  the  nature  of  the  relation, 
that  the  typical  transactions  forming  the  groundwork  of  the 
prophetical  delineation  should  have  been  contemplated  as 
future,  and  not  as  past  or  present.  It  is  true  that  the  prophet 
was  God's  messenger,  in  an  especial  sense,  to  the  men  of  his 
own  age;  and  as  such  usually  delivered  messages,  which 
were  called  forth  by  what  had  actually  occurred^  and  took 
from  this  its  impress.  But  he  was  not  necessarily  tied  to 
that.  As  from  tne  present  he  could  anticipate  the  still  un- 
developed future,  so  there  was  nothing  to  hinder — if  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  Church  might  require  it — that  he  should 
also  at  times  realize  as  present  a  nearer  future,  and  from  that 
anticipate  another  more  remote.  In  doing  so,  he  would  nat- 
urally transport  himself  into  the  position  of  those  who  were 
to  witness  that  nearer  future,  which  would  then  be  contem- 
plated as  holding  much  the  same  relation  typically  to  the 
higher  things  in  prospect,  as  in  the  case  last  considered;  that 
is,  the  matter-of-fact  prophecy  involved  in  the  typical  trans- 
actions viewed  as  already  present,  would  furnish  to  the 
prophet's  eye  the  form  and  aspect  under  which  he  would 
exhibit  the  corresponding  events  yet  to  be  expected. 

The  only  addition  which  the  view  now  suggested  makes 
to  the  one  generally  held  is,  that  we  suppose  the  prophet, 
while  he  spake  as  from  the  midst  of  circumstances  future, 
though  not  distant,  recognized  in  these  something  of  a  typi- 
cal nature ;  and  on  the  basis  of  that  as  the  type,  unfolded  tne 
greater  and  more  distant  antitype.  There  is  plainly  nothing 
incredible  or  even  improbable  in  such  a  supposition,  espe- 
cially if  the  nearer  future  already  lay  within  the  vision  of  the 
Church.  The  circumstances,  however,  giving  rise  to  proph- 

kingdom  throughout  is  God's,  only  existing  in  an  embryo  state,  while  presided 
over  by  David  and  his  merely  human  descendants;  and  rising  to  its  ripened 
form,  as  soon  as  it  passes  into  the  hands  of  one  who,  by  virtue  of  His  divine 
properties,  was  fitted  to  bear  the  glory.  The  prophecy,  therefore,  is  to  be 
regarded  as  a  general  promise  of  the  connection  of  the  kingdom  with  David's 
person  and  line,  including  Christ  as  belonging  to  that  line  after  the  flesh;  but 
m  respect  to  the  element  of  eternity,  the  absolute  perpetuity  guaranteed  in 
the  promise,  it  not  only  admitted,  but  required  the  possession  of  a  nature  in 
Christ  higher  unspeakably  than  He  could  derive  from  David. 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PEOPHECY.  127 

ecies  of  this  description  were  not  likely  to  be  of  very  frequent 
occurrence.  They  could  only  be  expected  in  those  more 
peculiar  emergencies  when  it  became  needful  for  the  Church's 
warning  or  consolation  to  overshoot,  as  it  were,  the  things 
more  immediately  in  prospect,  and  fix  the  eye  on  others  more 
remote  in  point  of  time,  though  in  nature  most  closely  con- 
nected witn  them. 

Now,  at  one  remarkable  period  of  her  history,  the  Old 
Testament  Church  was  certainly  in  such  circumstances — the 
period  just  preceding  and  coincident  with  the  Babylonish 
exile.  From  the  time  that  this  calamity  had  become  inevi- 
table, the  prophets,  as  already  noticed,  had  spoken  of  it  as  a 
second  Egypt — a  new  bondage  to  the  power  of  the  world, 
from  which  the  Church  required  to  be  delivered  by  a  new 
manifestation  of  redemptive  grace.  But  a  second  redemp- 
tion after  the  manner  of  the  first  would  obviously  no  longer 
suffice  to  restore  the  heart  of  faith  to  assured  confidence,  or 
fill  it  with  satisfying  expectations  of  coming  good.  The  re- 
demption from  Egypt,  with  all  its  marvellous  accompani- 
ments and  happy  results,  had  yet  failed  to  provide  an  effect- 
ual security  against  overwhelming  desolation.  And  if  the 
redemption  from  Babylon  might  have  brought,  in  the  fullest 
sense,  a  restoration  to  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  the  re-estab- 
lishment of  the  temple  service ;  yet,  if  this  were  all  the  spirit 
of  prophecy  could  descry  of  coming  good,  there  must  still 
have  been  room  for  fear  to  enter ;  there  could  scarcely  fail 
even  to  be  sad  forebodings  of  new  desolations  likely  to  arise 
and  undo  again  the  whole  that  had  been  accomplished.  At 
such  a  period,  therefore,  the  prophet  had  a  double  part  to 
perform,  when  charged  wilh  the  commission  to  comfort  the 
people  of  God.  He  had,  in  the  first  instance,  to  declare  the 
fixed  purpose  of  Heaven  to  visit  Babylon  for  her  sins,  and 
thereby  afford  a  door  of  escape  for  the  captive  children  of  the 
covenant,  that  as  a  people  saved  anew  they  might  return  to 
their  ancient  heritages.  But  he  had  to  do  more  than  this. 
He  had  to  take  his  station,  as  it  were,  on  the  floor  of  that 
nearer  redemption,  and  from  thence  direct  the  eye  of  hope 
to  another  and  higher,  of  which  it  was  but  the  imperfect 
shadow — a  redemption  which  should  lay  the  foundation  of 
the  Church's  well-being  so  broad  and  deep,  that  the  former 
troubles  could  no  longer  return,  and  heights  of  prosperity 
and  blessing  should  be  reached  entirely  unknown  in  the  past. 
Thus  alone  could  a  ground  of  consolation  be  provided  for  the 
people  of  God,  really  adequate  to  the  emergencies  of  that  dismal 
time,  when  all  that  was  of  God  seemed  ready  to  perish,  under 
the  combined  force  of 'internal  corruption  and  outward  violence. 


THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUBE. 

It  was  precisely  in  this  way  that  the  prophet  Isaiah  sought 
to  comfort  the  Church  of  God  by  inditing  tne  later  portion  of 
his  writings  (ch.  xl.-lxvi.),  in  which  we  have  the  most  impor- 
tant example  of  the  class  of  prophecies  now  under  considera- 
tion. The  central  object  in  the  whole  of  this  magnificent 
chain  of  prophecy,  is  the  appearance,  work,  and  kingdom  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ — His  spirit  and  character,  His  suffer- 
ings and  triumphs,  the  completeness  of  His  redemption,  the 
safety  and  blessedness  of  His  people,  the  certain  overthrow 
of  His  enemies,  and  the  final  glory  of  His  kingdom.  The 
manner  in  which  this  prophetic  discourse  is  entered  on, 
might  alone  satisfy  us  that  such  is  in  reality  its  main  theme. 
For  the  voice  which  there  meets  us,  of  one  crying  in  the  wil- 
derness, is  that  to  which,  according  to  all  the  evangelists, 
John  the  Baptist  appealed,  as  announcing  beforehand  his 
oifice  and  mission  to  the  Church  of  God.  And  if  the  fore- 
runner is  found  at  the  threshold,  who  should  chiefly  occupy 
the  interior  of  the  building  but  He  whom  John  was  specially 
sent  to  make  known  to  Israel  ?  The  substance  of  the  mes- 
sage also,  as  briefly  indicated  there,  entirely  corresponds;  for 
it  speaks  not,  as  is  often  loosely  represented,  of  the  people's 
return  to  Jerusalem,  but  of  the  Lord's  return  to  His  people ; 
it  announces  a  coming  revelation  of  His  glory,  which  all  flesh 
should  see;  and  proclaims  to  the  cities  of  Judah  the  tidings, 
Behold  your  God !  We  are  not  to  be  understood  as  meaning, 
that  the  Lord  might  not  in  a  sense  be  said  to  come  to  His 

Ssople,  when  in  their  behalf  He  brought  down  the  pride  of 
abylon,  and  laid  open  for  them  a  way  of  return  to  their 
native  land.  A  reference  to  this  more  secret  and  prepara- 
tory revelation  of  Himself  may  certainly  be  understood,  both 
here  and  in  several  kindred  representations  that  follow;  yet 
not  as  their  direct  and  immediate  object ;  but  rather  as  some- 
thing presupposed,  similar  in  kind,  though  immensely  infe- 
rior in  degree,  to  the  proper  reality.  There  are  passages, 
indeed,  so  general  in  the  truths  and  principles  they  enun- 
ciate, that  they  can  not  with  propriety  be  limited  to  one 
period  of  the  Church's  history  any  more  than  to  another. 
And  again,  there  are  others,  especially  the  portion  reaching 
from  ch.  xliv.  24  to  xlviii.  22,  as  also  ch.  li.,  Hi,  which  refer 
more  immediately  to  the  events  connected  with  the  deliver- 
ance from  Babylon,  as  things  in  themselves  perfectly  certain, 
and  fitted  to  awaken  confidence  in  regard  to  the  greater 
things  that  were  yet  destined  to  be  accomplished.  He  who 
could  speak  of  Babylon  as  already  prostrate  in  the  dust,  though 
no  shade  had  yet  come  over  the  lustre  of  her  glory — who,  at 
the  very  moment  she  was  the  scourge  and  terror  of  the 


COMBINATION  OF  TYPE  WITH  PROPHECY.          129 

nations,  could  picture  to  himself  the  time  when  she  should  be 
seen  as  a  spoiled  and  forlorn  captive— who  could  behold  the 
once  weeping  exiles  of  Judea,  escaped  from  her  grasp,  and 
sent  back  with  honor  to  revive  the  glories  of  Jerusalem,  while 
the  proud  destroyer  was  left  to  sink  and  moulder  into  irre- 
coverable ruin — He  who  could  foresee  all  this  as  in  a  manner 
present,  and  commit  to  His  Church  the  prophetic  announce- 
ment generations  before  it  had  been  fulfilled,  might  well 
claim  from  His  people  an  implicit  faith,  when  giving  intima- 
tion of  a  work  still  to  be  done,  the  greatness  of  which  should 
surpass  all  thought,  as  its  blessings  should  extend  to  all  lands 
(ch.  xlv.  17,  22,  xlix.  18-26).  Thus  the  deliverance  accom- 
plished from  the  yoke  of  Babylon  formed  a  fitting  prelude 
and  stepping-stone  to  the  main  subject  of  the  prophecy — the 
revelation  of  God  in  the  person  and  work  of  His  Son.  The 
certainty  of  the  one — a  certainty  soon  to  be  realized — was  a 
pledge  of  the  ultimate  certainty  of  the  other ;  and  the  char- 
acter also  of  the  former,  as  a  singular  and  unexpected  mani- 
festation of  the  Lord's  power  to  deliver  His  people  and  lay 
their  enemies  in  the  dust,  was  a  prefiguration  of  what  was 
to  be  accomplished  once  for  all  in  the  salvation  to  be  wrought 
out  by  Jesus  Christ.1 

There  are  few  portions  of  Old  Testament  prophecy  which 
altogether  resemble  the  one  we  have  been  considering.  Per- 
haps that  which  approaches  nearest  to  it  in  the  mode  of 
combining  type  with  prophecy,  is  the  thirty-fourth  chapter 
of  Isaiah,  which  is  not  a  direct  and  simple  delineation  of  the 
judgments  that  were  destined  to  alight  upon  Idumea,  but 
rather  an  ideal  representation  of  the  judgments  preparing  to 
alight  on  the  enemies  generally  of  God's  people,  founded 
upon  the  approaching  desolations  of  Edom,  which  it  contem- 
plates as  the  type  of  the  destruction  that  awaits  all  the  ad- 
versaries. Still  more  closely  analogous,  however,  is  our  Lord's 
prophecy  regarding  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  His 
own  final  advent  to  judge  the  world,  in  the  twenty-fourth 
chapter  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel ;  in  which,  undoubtedly,  the 
nearer  future  is  regarded  as  the  type  of  the  higher  and  more 
remote.  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  the  two  events  were  to 
a  certain  extent  thrown  together  in  the  prophetic  delinea- 
tion; for  the  efforts  that  have  been  made  to  separate  the 
portions  strictly  applicable  to  each,  have  never  wholly  suc- 
ceeded; and  more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  part  of  prophetic 
Scripture  is  there  the  appearance  nere  of  something  like  a 
double  sense.  What  reasons  may  have  existed  for  this  we 

1  Compare  the  excellent  outline  of  the  subjects  discoursed  of  in  this  part 
if  Isaiah's  writings  in  Vitringa,  Com.  on  ch.  xii. 

VOL.  i. — 9. 


130  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCBIPTtTKE. 

can  still  but  imperfectly  apprehend.  One  principal  reason, 
we  may  certainly  conceive,  was,  that  it  did  not  accord  with 
our  Lord's  design,  to  have  exhibited  very  precise  and  definite 
prognostics  of  His  second  coming.  This  would  have  been 
fraught  with  danger  to  His  disciples.  The  exact  period 
behoved  to  be  shrouded  almost  to  the  very  last  in  mystery, 
and  it  seemed  to  divine  wisdom  the  fittest  course  to  order 
the  circumstances  connected  with  the  final  act  of  judgment 
on  the  typical  people  and  territory,  so  as  to  serve  at  the  same 
time,  for  signs  and  tokens  of  the  last  great  act  of  judgment 
on  the  world  at  large.  As  the  acts  themselves  corresponded, 
so  there  should  also  be  a  correspondence  in  the  manner  of 
their  accomplishment ;  and  to  contemplate  the  one  as  imaged 
in  the  other,  without  being  able  in  all  respects  to  draw  the 
line  very  accurately  between  them,  was  the  whole  that  could 
safely  be  permitted  to  believers. 

The  result,  then,  of  the  preceding  investigation  is,  that 
there  is  in  Scripture  a  fourfold  combination  of  type  with 
prophecy.  In  the  first  of  these  the  prophetic  import  lies  in 
the  type,  and  in  the  word  only  as  descriptive  of  the  type. 
In  the  others  there  was  not  a  double  sense,  but  a  double 
prophecy — a  typical  prophecy  in  action,  coupled  with  a  ver- 
bal prophecy  in  word;  not  uniformly  combined,  however, 
but  variously  modified :  in  one  class  a  distinct  typical  action, 
having  associated  with  it  an  express  prophetical  announce- 
ment; in  another,  the  typical  lying  only  as  the  background 
on  which  the  spirit  of  prophecy  raised  the  prediction  of  a 
corresponding  but  much  grander  future ;  and  in  still  another, 
the  typical  belonging  to  a  nearer  future,  which  was  realized 
as  present,  and  taken  as  the  occasion  and  groundwork  of 
a  prophecy  respecting  a  future,  at  once  greater  and  more 
remote.  It  is  in  this  last  department  alone  that  there  is  any 
thing  like  a  mixing  up  of  two  subjects  together,  and  a  conse- 
quent difficulty  in  determining  when  precisely  the  language 
refers  to  the  nearer,  and  when  to  the  more  remote  transactions. 
Even  then,  however,  only  in  rare  cases ;  and  with  this  slight 
exception,  there  is  nothing  that  carries  the  appearance  of  con- 
fusion or  ambiguity.  Each  part  holds  its  appropriate  place, 
and  the  connection  subsisting  between  them,  in  its  various 
shapes  and  forms,  is  very  much  what  might  have  been  expected 
in  a  system  so  complex  and  many-sided  as  that  to  which  they 
belonged. 


We  proceed  now  to  offer  some  remarks  on  the  views  gen- 
erally held  on  the   subject  of  the  prophecies  which  have 


ALLEGED  DOUBLE  SENSE.  131 

passed  under  our  consideration.  They  fall  into  two  opposite 
sections.  Overlooking  the  real  connection  in  such  cases  be- 
tween type  and  propnecy,  and  often  misapprehending  the 
proper  import  of  the  language,  the  opinion  contended  for,  on 
the  one  side,  has  been,  that  the  predictions  contain  a  double 
sense — the  one  primary  and  the  other  secondary,  or  the  one 
literal  and  the  other  mystical;  while,  on  the  contrary  side, 
it  has  been  maintained  that  the  predictions  have  but  one 
meaning,  and  when  applied  in  New  Testament  Scripture,  in 
a  way  not  accordant  with  that  meaning,  it  is  held  to  be  a 
simple  accommodation  of  the  words.  A  brief  examination 
of  the  two  opposing  views  will  be  sufficient  for  our  purpose. 

1.  And,  first,  in  regard  to  the  view  which  advocates  the 
theory  of  the  double  sense.  Here  it  has  been  laid  down  as  a 
settled  canon  of  interpretation,  that  "the  same  prophecies 
frequently  refer  to  different  events,  the  one  near  and  the 
other  remote — the  one  temporal,  the  other  spiritual,  and  per- 
haps eternal ;  that  the  expressions  are  partly  applicable  to  one 
and  partly  to  another ;  and  that  what  has  not  been  fulfilled 
in  the  first,  we  must  apply  to  the  second."  If  so,  the  conclu- 
sion seems  inevitable,  that  there  must  be  a  painful  degree  of 
uncertainty  and  confusion  resting  on  such  portions  of  pro- 
phetic Scripture.  And  the  ambiguity  thus  necessarily  per- 
vading them,  must,  one  would  think,  have  rendered  them  of 
comparatively  little  value,  whether  originally  as  a  ground  of 
hope  to  the  Old  Testament  Church,  or  now  as  an  evidence 
of  faith  to  the  New. 

Great  ingenuity  was  certainly  shown  by  Warburton  in  la- 
boring to  establish  the  grounds  of  this  double  sense,  without 
materially  impairing  in  any  respect  the  validity  of  the  proph- 
ecy. The  view  advocated  by  him,  however,  lies  open  to  two 
serious  objections,  which  have  been  powerfully  urged  against 
it,  especially  by  Bishop  Marsh,  and  which  have  demonstrated 
its  arbitrarinsss.  1.  In  the  first  place,  while  it  proceeds  upon 
the  supposition  that  the  double  sense  of  prophecy  is  quite 
analogous  to  the  double  sense  of  allegory,  there  is  in  reality 
an  essential  difference  between  them.  "  When  we  interpret 
a  prophecy,  to  which  a  double  meaning  is  ascribed,  the  one 
relating  to  the  Jewish,  the  other  to  the  Christian,  dispensa- 
tion, we  are  in  either  case  concerned  with  an  interpretation 
of  words.  For  the  same  words  which,  according  to  one  in- 
terpretation, are  applied  to  one  event,  are,  according  to  an- 
other interpretation,  applied  to  another  event  But  in  the 
interpretation  of  an  allegory,  we  are  concerned  only  in  the 
first  instance  with  an  interpretation  of  words;  the  second 
sense,  which  is  usually  called  the  allegorical,  being  an  in- 


182  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

terpretation  of  tilings.  The  interpretation  of  the  words  gives 
nothing  more  than  the  plain  and  simple  narratives  tnem- 
eelves  (the  allegory  generally  assuming  the  form  of  a  narra- 
tive); whereas  the  moral  of  tne  allegory  is  learnt  by  an  appli- 
cation of  the  things  signified  by  those  words  to  other  things 
which  resemble  them,  and  which  the  former  were  intended 
to  suggest.  There  is  a  fundamental  difference,  therefore,  be- 
tween the  interpretation  of  an  allegory,  and  the  interpreta- 
tion of  a  prophecy  with  a  double  sense."1  2.  The  view  of 
Warburton  is,  besides,  liable  to  the  objection  that  it  not  only 
affixes  a  necessary  darkness  and  obscurity  to  the  prophecies 
having  the  double  sense,  but  also  precludes  the  existence  of 
any  other  prophecies  more  plain,  direct,  and  explicit — until 
at  least  the  dispensation  under  which  the  propnecies  were 
given,  and  for  which  the  double  sense  specially  adapted  them, 
was  approaching  its  termination.  He  contends  that  the  veiled 
meaning  of  the  prophecies  was  necessary,  in  order  at  once  to 
awaken  some  general  expectations  among  the  Jews  of  better 
things  to  come,  and,  at  tne  same  time,  to  prevent  these  from 
being  so  distinctly  understood  as  to  weaken  their  regard  to 
existing  institutions.  It  is  fatal  to  this  view  of  the  matter, 
that  in  reality  many  of  the  most  direct  and  perspicacious 
prophecies  concerning  the  Messiah  were  contemporaneous 
with  those  which  are  alleged  to  possess  the  double  meaning 
and  the  veiled  reference  to  the  Messiah.  If,  therefore,  the 
divine  method  were  such  as  to  admit  only  of  the  one  class,  it 
must  have  been  defeated  by  the  other.  And  it  must  also 
have  been  not  so  properly  a  ground  of  blame  as  a  matter  of 
necessity,  arising  from  the  very  circumstances  of  their  posi- 
tion, that  the  Jews  "  could  not  steadfastly  look  to  the  end  of 
that  which  was  to  be  abolished."  *  The  reverse,  however,  was 
actually  the  case;  for  the  more  clearly  they  perceived  the 
meaning  of  the  prophecies,  and  the  end  of  their  symbolical 
institutions,  the  more  heartily  did  they  enter  into  the  design 
of  God,  and  the  more  nearly  attain  the  condition  which  it 
became  them  to  occupy. 

These  objections,  however,  apply  chiefly  to  that  vindication 
of  the  double  sense  which  came  from  the  hand  of  Warburton, 
and  was  interwoven  with  his  peculiar  theory.  The  opinion 
has  since  been  advocated  in  a  manner  that  guards  it  against 
both  objections,  and  is  put,  perhaps,  in  the  most  approved  form 
by  Davison.  "  What,  he  asks,  "  is  the  double  sense  ?  Not 
the  convenient  latitude  of  two  unconnected  senses,  wide  of 
each  other,  and  giving  room  to  a  fallacious  ambiguity,  but 

'  Marsh's  Lectures,  p.  444.  «  2  Oor.  iii.  13. 


13d 

the  combination  of  two  related,  analogous,  and  harmonizing, 
though  disparate,  subjects,  each  clear  and  definite  in  itself; 
implying  a  twofold  truth  in  the  prescience,  and  creating  an 
aggravated  difficulty,  and  thereby  an  accumulated  proof,  in 
the  completion.  For  a  case  in  point:  to  justify  the  predic- 
tions concerning  the  kingdom  of  David  in  their  double  force, 
it  must  be  shown  of  them  that  they  hold  in  each  of  their  rela- 
tions, and  in  each  were  fulfilled.  So  that  the  double  sense 
of  prophecy,  in  its  true  idea,  is  a  check  upon  the  pretences  of 
a  vague  and  unappropriated  prediction,  rather  than  a  door  to 
admit  them.  But  this  is  not  all.  For  if  the  prediction  dis- 
tribute its  sense  into  two  remote  branches  or  systems  of  the 
divine  economy ;  if  it  show  not  only  what  is  to  take  place  in 
distant  times,  but  describe  also  different  modes  of  God's  ap- 
pointment, though  holding  a  certain  and  intelligent  resem- 
blance to  each  other, — such  prediction  becomes  not  only  more 
convincing  in  the  argument,  but  more  instructive  in  the  doc- 
trine, because  it  expresses  the  correspondence  of  God's  dis- 
pensations in  their  points  of  agreement,  as  well  as  His  fore- 
knowledge."1 

This  representation  so  far  coincides  with  the  one  given  in 
the  preceding  pages,  that  it  virtually  recognizes  a  combina- 
tion of  type  with  prophecy ;  but  differs  in  that  it  supposes  both 
to  have  been  included  in  the  prediction,  the  one  constituting 
the  primary,  the  other  the  secondary,  sense  of  its  terms.  And, 
undoubtedly,  according  to  this  scheme  as  well  as  our  own,  the 
correspondence  between  God's  dispensations  might  be  suffi- 
ciently exhibited,  both  in  regard  to  doctrine  and  general  har- 
mony of  arrangement.  But  when  it  is  contended  further,  that 
prophecy  with  such  a  double  sense,  instead  of  rendering  the 
evidence  it  furnishes  of  divine  foresight  more  vague  and 
unsatisfactory,  only  supplies  an  accumulated  proof  of  it  by 
creating  an  aggravated  difficulty  in  the  fulfilment,  it  seems 
to  be  forgotten  that  the  terms  of  the  prediction,  to  admit  of 
such  a  duplicate  fulfilment,  must  have  been  made  so  much 
more  general  and  vague.  But  it  is  the  precision  and  defi- 
niteness  of  the  terms  in  a  prediction  which,  when  compared 
with  the  facts  in  providence  that  verify  them,  chiefly  produce 
in  our  minds  a  conviction  of  divine  foresight  and  direction. 
And  in  so  far  as  prophecies  might  have  been  constructed  to 
comprehend  two  series  of  disparate  events,  holding  in  each 
of  the  relations,  and  in  each  fulfilled,  it  could  only  be  by  dis- 
pensing with  the  more  exact  criteria,  which  we  can  not  help 
regarding  in  such  cases  as  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of 
prophetic  inspiration. 

'  Davison  On  Prophecy,  p.  198, 


134  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

But  as  it  was  by  no  means  the  sole  object  of  prophecy  to 
provide  this  evidence,  so  predictions  without  sncn  exact  cri- 
teria are  by  no  means  wanting  in  the  word  of  God.  There 
are  prophecies  which  were  not  so  much  designed  to  foretell 
definite  events,  as  to  unfold  great  prospects  and  results,  in 
respect  to  the  manifestation  of  God's  purposes  of  grace  and 
truth  toward  men.  Such  prophecies  were  of  necessity  general 
and  comprehensive  in  their  terms,  and  admitted  of  manifold 
fulfilments.  It  is  of  them  that  we  would  understand  the 
singularly  pregnant  and  beautiful  remark  of  Lord  Bacon  in 
the  Second  Book  of  the  Advancement  of  Learning,  that  "Divine 
prophecies,  being  of  the  nature  of  their  Author,  with  whom  a 
thousand  years  are  as  but  one  day,  are  therefore  not  fulfilled 
punctually  at  once,  but  have  springing  and  germinant  accom- 
plishment ;  though  the  height  or  fulness  of  them  mav  refer  to 
some  one  age."  The  very  first  prophecy  ever  uttered  to  fallen 
man, — the  promise  given  of  a  seed  through  the  woman  which 
should  bruise  the  head  of  the  serpent, — and  that  afterwards 
given  to  Abraham  of  a  seed  of  blessing,  may  be  fitly  specified 
as  illustrations  of  the  principle ;  since  in  either  case — though 
by  virtue,  not  of  a  double  sense,  but  of  a  wide  and  compre- 
hensive import — a  fulfilment  from  the  first  was  constantly 
proceeding,  while  "the  height  and  fulness"  of  the  predicted 
good  could  only  be  reached  in  the  redemption  of  Cnrist  and 
the  glories  of  His  kingdom. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  matter  at  issue,  we  have  yet  to 
press  our  main  objection  to  the  theory  of  the  double  sense  of 
prophecy ;  we  dispute  the  fact  on  which  it  is  founded,  that 
there  really  are  prophecies  (with  the  partial  exceptions  already 
noticed)  predictive  of  similar  though  disparate  series  of  events, 
strictly  applicable  to  each,  and  in  each  finding  their  fulfil- 
ment. This  necessarily  forms  the  main  position  of  the  advo- 
cates of  the  double  sense ;  and  when  brought  to  particulars, 
they  constantly  fail  to  establish  it  The  terms  of  the  several 
predictions  are  sure  to  be  put  to  the  torture,  in  order  to  get 
one  of  the  two  senses  extracted  from  them.  And  the  violent 
interpretations  resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  this, 
afford  one  of  the  most  striking  proofs  of  the  blinding  influ- 
ence which  a  theoretical  bias  may  exert  over  the  mind.  Such 
Psalms,  for  example,  as  the  h^cond  and  forty-fifth,  which  are 
so  distinctly  characteristic  ot  the  Messiah,  that  some  learned 
commentators  have  abandoned  their  early  predilections  to 
interpret  them  wholly  of  Him,  are  yet  ascribed  by  the  advo- 
cates of  the  double  sense  as  well  to  David  as  to  Christ  Nay, 
by  a  singular  inversion  of  the  usual  meaning  of  words,  they 
call  the  former  the  literal,  and  the  latter  their  figurative  or 


ALLEGED  DOUBLE  SENSE.  185 

secondary  sense, — although  this  last  is  the  only  one  the  words 
can  strictly  bear. 

There  is  no  greatei  success  in  most  other  cases ;  let  us  take 
but  one  example :  "  Thou  shalt  not  leave  my  soul  in  hell ;  nei- 
ther wilt  Thou  suffer  Thine  Holy  One  to  see  corruption.  Thou 
wilt  make  known  to  me  the  path  of  life :  in  Thy  presence  is 
fulness  of  joy;  and  at  Thy  right  hand  are  pleasures  for  ever- 
more." These  words  in  the  sixteenth  Psalm  were  applied  by 
the  apostle  Peter  to  Christ,  as  finding  in  the  events  of  His 
history  their  only  proper  fulfilment.  David,  he  contends, 
could  not  have  been  speaking  directly  of  himself,  since  he 
had  seen  corruption;  and  instead  of  regaining  the  path  of 
life,  and  ascending  into  the  presence  of  God  (namely,  in  glo- 
rified humanity),  had  suffered,  as  all  knew,  the  common  lot 
of  nature.  And  so,  the  apostle  refers,  the  words  should  be 
understood  more  immediately  of  Christ,  in  whose  history 
alone  they  could  properly  be  said  to  be  accomplished.  War- 
burton,  however,  inverts  this  order.  Of  the  deliverance  from 
hell,  the  freedom  from  corruption,  and  the  return  to  the  paths 
of  life,  he  says,  "  Though  it  literally  signifies  security  from 
the  curse  of  the  law  upon  transgressors,  viz.,  immature  death, 
yet  it  may  very  reasonably  be  understood  in  a  spiritual  sense 
of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  from  the  dead ;  in  winch  case  the 
words  or  terms  translated  soul  and  hett  are  left  in  the  meaning 
they  bear  in  the  Hebrew  tongue  of  body  and  grave  1 "  He  does 
not,  of  course,  deny  that  Peter  claimed  the  passage  as  a  proph- 
ecy of  Christ's  resurrection ;  but  maintains  that  he  does  so, 
"no  otherwise  than  by  giving  it  a  secondary  or  spiritual 
sense."  In  such  a  style  of  interpretation,  one  can  not  but 
feel  as  if  the  terms  -primary  and  secondary,  literal  and  sjnr- 
itual,  had  been  made  to  exchange  places ;  since  the  plain  im- 
port of  the  words  seems  to  carry  us  directly  to  Chnst,  while 
it  requires  a  certain  strain  to  be  put  upon  them  before  they 
can  properly  apply  to  the  case  of  David. 

Such,  indeed,  is  what  usually  happens  with  the  instances 
selected  by  the  advocates  of  this  theory.  The  double  sense 
they  contend  for  does  not  strictly  hold  in  both  of  the  rela- 
tions ;  and  very  commonly  what  is  contended  for  as  the  im- 
mediate and  primary,  is  the  sense  that  is  least  accordant  with 
the  grammatical  import  of  the  words.  We  therefore  reject  it 
as  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  any  considerable  class  of 
prophecies,  and  on  three  several  grounds:  First,  because  it 
so  ravels  and  complicates  the  meaning  of  the  prophecies  to 
which  it  is  applied,  as  to  involve  us  in  painful  doubt  and 
uncertainty  regarding  their  proper  application.  Secondly, 
should  this  be  avoided,  it  can  only  arise  from  the  prophecies 


136  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

being  of  so  general  and  comprehensive  a  nature,  as  to  be 
incapable  of  a  very  close  and  specific  fulfilment.  And,  finally, 
when  applied  to  particular  examples,  the  theory  practically 
gives  way,  as  the  terms  employed  in  all  the  more  important 
predictions  are  too  definite  and  precise  to  admit  of  more  than 
one  proper  fulfilment. 

2.  We  now  turn,  in  the  last  place,  to  the  mode  of  propheti- 
cal interpretation  which  has  commonly  prevailed  with  those 
who  have  ranged  themselves  in  opposition  to  the  theory  of 
the  double  sense.  The  chief  defect  in  this  class  of  interpret- 
ers consists  in  their  having  failed  to  take  sufficiently  into 
account  the  connection  subsisting  between  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testament  dispensations.  They  have  hence  generally 
given  only  a  partial  view  of  the  relations  involved  in  partic- 
ular prophecies,  and  not  unfrequently  have  confined  the  ap- 
plication of  these  to  circumstances  which  only  supplied  the 
occasion  of  their  delivery,  and  the  form  of  their  delineations. 
The  single  sense  contended  for  has  thus  too  often  differed 
materially  from  the  real  sense.  And  many  portions  of  the 
Psalms  and  other  prophetical  Scriptures,  which  in  New  Tes- 
tament Scripture  itself  are  applied  to  Gospel  times,  have  been 
stript  of  their  evangelical  import,  on  the  ground  that  the 
writer  of  the  prophecy  must  have  had  in  view  some  events 
immediately  affecting  himself  or  his  country,  and  that  no 
further  use,  except  by  way  of  accommodation,  can  legitimately 
be  made  of  the  words  he  uttered. 

Such,  for  example,  has  been  the  way  that  the  remarkable 
prophecy  in  Isaiah,  respecting  the  son  to  be  born  of  a  virgin,1 
nas  often  been  treated.  The  words  of  the  prophecy  are, 
"  Behold  the  virgin  conceiveth  and  beareth  a  son,  and  she 
shall  call  his  name  Immanuel.  Butter  [rather  milk]  and 
honey  shall  he  eat  when  he  shall  know  (or,  that  he  may 
know)  to  refuse  what  is  evil,  and  choose  what  is  good ;  for 
before  this  child  shall  know  to  refuse  the  evil,  and  to  choose 
the  good,  the  land  shall  become  desolate,  by  whose  two  kings 
thou  art  distressed."  We  have  what  may  justly  be  called  two 
inspired  commentaries  on  this  prediction — one  in  the  Old,  and 
another  in  the  New,  Testament.  The  prophet  Micah,  the  con- 
temporary of  Isaiah,  evidently  referring  to  the  words  before 
us,  says  immediately  after  announcing  the  birth  of  the  future 
Ruler  of  Israel  at  Bethlehem,  "Therefore  will  he  give  them 
up,  until  the  time  that  she  who  shall  bear  hath  brought  forth  " 
(v.  3).  The  peculiar  expression,  "  she  who  shall  bear,"  points 
to  the  already  designated  mother  of  the  Divine  King,  but 

'  Ch.  vii. 


RATIONALISTIC  SINGLE  SENSE.  137 

only  in  this  prediction  of  Isaiah  designated  as  the  virgin ;  so 
that,  in  the  language  of  Kosenmuller,  "both  predictions  throw 
light  on  each  other.  Micah  discloses  the  divine  origin  of  the 
Person  predicted;  Isaiah  the  wonderful  manner  of  His  birth." 
The  other  allusion  in  inspired  Scripture  is  by  St.  Matthew, 
when,  relating  the  miraculous  circumstances  of  Christ's  birth, 
he  adds,  "  Now  all  this  was  done,  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  prophet,  saying,  Behold 
a  virgin  shall  be  with  child,"  etc.  And  the  prophecy,  as 
Bishop  Lowth  has  well  stated,  "is  introduced  in  so  solemn  a 
manner ;  the  sign  is  so  marked,  as  a  sign  selected  and  given 
by  God  Himself  after  Ahaz  had  rejected  the  offer  of  any  sign 
of  his  own  choosing  out  of  the  whole  compass  of  nature ;  the 
terms  of  the  prophecy  are  so  peculiar,  and  the  name  of  the 
child  so  expressive,  containing  in  them  much  more  than 
the  circumstances  of  the  birth  of  a  common  child  required, 
or  even  admitted, — that  we  may  easily  suppose,  that  in  minds 
prepared  by  the  general  expectation  of  a  great  deliverer  to 
spring  from  the  house  of  David,  they  raised  hopes  far  beyond 
what  the  present  occasion  suggested;  especially  when  it  was 
found  that  in  the  subsequent  prophecy,  delivered  immediately 
afterward,  this  child,  called  Immanuel,  is  treated  as  the  Lord 
and  Prince  of  Judah.1  Who  could  this  be,  other  than  the 
heir  of  the  throne  of  David?  under  which  character  a  great 
and  even  a  divine  person  had  been  promised." 

These  things  leave  little  doubt  as  to  the  real  bearing  of  the 
prophecy.  But  as  originally  delivered,  it  is  connected  with 
two  peculiarities:  the  one,  that  it  is  given  as  a  sign  to  the 
house  of  David,  then  represented  by  the  wicked  Ahaz,  and 
trembling  for  fear  on  account  of  the  combined  hostility  of 
Syria  and  Israel ;  the  other,  that  it  is  succeeded  by  a  word 
to  the  prophet  concerning  a  son  to  be  born  to  him  by  the 
prophetess,  which  should  not  be  able  to  cry,  My  father,  before 
the  king  of  Assyria  had  spoiled  both  the  kingdoms  of  Syria 
and  Israel.*  And  it  has  been  thought,  from  these  peculiarities, 
that  it  was  really  this  son  of  the  prophet  that  was  meant  by 
the  Immanuel,  as  this  alone  could  be  a  proper  sign  to  Ahaz 
of  the  deliverance  that  was  to  be  so  speedily  granted  to  him 
from  the  object  of  his  dread.  So  Grotius,  who  holds  that 
St.  Matthew  only  applied  it  mystically  to  Christ,  and  a 
whole  host  of  interpreters  since,  of  whom  many  can  think  of 
no  better  defence  for  the  evangelist  than  that,  as  the  words 
of  the  prophet  were  more  elevated  and  full  than  the  immedi- 
ate occasion  demanded,  they  might  be  said  to  be  fulfilled  in 

'  Ch.  Tiii.  8-10.  *  Ch.  viii  1-4. 


188  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOKIPTTJEE. 

what  more  nearly  accorded  with  them.  Apologies  of  this 
kind  will  not  avail  much  in  the  present  day,  and  in  reality 
they  are  not  needed.  It  is  quite  arbitrary  to  suppose  that  the 
child  to  be  born  of  the  prophetess  (an  ideal  child,  we  should 
imagine,  conceived  and  oorn  in  prophetic  vision — since  other- 
wise it  would  seem  to  have  been  born  in  fornication)  is  to  be 
identified  with  the  virgin's  son ;  the  rather  so,  as  an  entirely 
different  name  is  given  to  it  (Maher-shalal-hash-baz), — an 
ideal  but  descriptive  name,  and  pointing  simply  to  the  spo- 
liation that  was  to  be  effected  on  the  hostile  kingdoms. 
Immanuel  has  another,  a  higher  import,  and  bespeaks  what 
the  Lord  should  be  to  the  covenant  people,  not  what  He 
should  do  to  the  enemies.  Nor  is  the  other  circumstance, 
of  the  word  being  uttered  as  a  sign  to  the  house  of  David, 
any  reason  for  turning  it  from  its  natural  sense  and  applica- 
tion. A  sign  in  the  ordinary  sense  had  been  refused,  under  a 
pretence  of  pious  trust  in  God,  but  really  from  a  feeling  of 
distrust  and  improper  reliance  on  an  arm  of  flesh.  And  now 
the  Lord  gives  a  sign  in  a  pecular  sense, — much  as  Jesus 
met  the  craving  of  an  adulterous  generation  for  a  sign  from 
heaven,  by  giving  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonas — the  reverse 
of  what  they  either  wished  or  expected, — a  sign  not  from 
heaven,  but  from  the  lower  parts  of  the  earth.  So  here,  by 
announcing  the  birth  of  Immanuel,  the  prophet  gave  a  sign 
suited  to  the  time  of  backsliding  and  apostasy  in  which  he 
lived.  For  it  told  the  house  of  David  that,  wearying  God  as 
they  were  doing  by  their  sins,  He  would  vindicate  His  cause 
in  a  way  they  little  expected  or  desired ;  that  He  would  se- 
cure the  establishment  of  His  covenant  with  the  house  of 
David,  by  raising  up  a  child  in  whom  the  divine  should 
actually  commingle  with  the  human;  but  that  this  child 
should  be  the  offspring  of  some  unknown  virgin,  not  of  Ahaz 
or  of  any  ordinary  occupant  of  the  throne ;  and  that,  mean- 
while, every  thing  should  go  to  desolation  and  ruin — first, 
indeed,  in  the  allied  kingdoms  of  Israel  and  Syria  (ver.  16), 
but  afterwards  also  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah  (vers.  17-25); 
so  that  the  destined  possessor  of  the  throne,  when  he  came, 
should  find  all  in  a  prostrate  condition,  and  grow  up  like  one 
in  an  impoverished  and  stricken  country,  fed  with  the  simple 
fare  of  a  cottage  shepherd  (comp.  ver.  16  with  22).  Thus 
understood,  the  whole  is  entirely  natural  and  consistent;  and 
the  single  sense  of  the  prophecy  proves  to  be  identical,  as 
well  with  the  native  force  of  the  words,  as  with  the  interpreta- 
tions of  inspired  men.1 

1  Of  later  Commentaries,  published  since  the  above  was  •written,  both 
Drechsler  and  Delitzsch  take  the  same  view  of  the  prophecy. 


KATIONALISTIC  SINGLE  SENSE.  139 

We  have  selected  this  as  one  of  the  most  common  and 
plausible  specimens  of  the  false  style  of  interpretation  to 
which  we  have  referred.  It  is  needless  to  adduce  more,  as 
the  explanations  given  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  chapter 
have  already  met  many  of  them  by  anticipation;  and  the 
supplementary  treatise  in  the  Appendix  will  supply  what 
further  may  be  needed.  If  but  honestly  and  earnestly  dealt 
with,  the  Scriptures  have  no  reason  to  fear,  in  this  or  in  other 
departments,  the  closest  investigation :  the  more  there  is  of 
rigid  inquiry,  displacing  superficial  considerations,  the  more 
will  their  inner  truth  and  harmony  appear. 


CHAPTER  SIXTH. 

THE  INTERPRETATION  OP  PARTICULAR  TYPES SPECIFIC   PRINCIPLES   AND 

DIRECTIONS. 

IT  was  one  of  the  objections  urged  against  the  typological 
views  of  our  elder  divines,  that  their  system  admitted  of  no 
fixed  or  definite  rules  being  laid  down  for  guiding  us  to  the 
knowledge  and  interpretation  of  particular  types.  Every 
thing  was  left  to  the  discretion  or  caprice  of  the  individual 
who  undertook  to  investigate  them.  The  few  directions  that 
were  sometimes  given  upon  the  subject  were  too  vague  and 
general  to  be  of  any  material  service.  That  the  type  must 
have  borne,  in  its  original  design  and  institution,  a  pre-or- 
dained reference  to  the  Gospel  antitype — that  there  is  often 
more  in  the  type  than  in  the  antitype,  and  more  in  the  anti- 
type than  the  type— that  there  must  be  a  natural  and  appro- 
priate application  of  the  one  to  the  other — that  the  wicked  as 
such,  and  acts  of  sin  as  such,  must  be  excluded  from  the  cate- 
gory of  types — that  one  thing  is  sometimes  the  type  of  dif- 
ferent and  even  contrary  things,  though  in  different  respects 
— and  that  there  is  sometimes  an  interchange  between  the 
type  and  the  antitype  of  the  names  respectively  belonging  to 
each: — These  rules  of  interpretation,  which  are  the  whole 
that  Glassius  and  other  hermeneutical  writers  furnish  for  our 
direction,  could  not  go  far,  either  to  restrain  the  license  of 
conjecture,  or  to  mark  out  the  particular  course  of  thought 
and  inquiry  that  should  be  pursued.  They  can  scarcely  be 
said  to  touch  the  main  difficulties  of  the  subject,  and  throw 
no  light  on  its  more  distinguishing  peculiarities.  Nor  indeed 
could  any  other  result  have  been  expected.  The  rules  could 
not  be  precise  or  definite,  when  the  system  on  which  they 
were  founded  was  altogether  loose  and  indeterminate.  And 
only  with  the  laying  of  a  more  solid  and  stable  foundation 
could  directions  for  the  practical  treatment  of  the  subject  come 
to  possess  any  measure  of  satisfaction  or  explicitness. 

Even  on  the  supposition  that  some  progress  has  now  been 
made  in  laying  such  a  foundation,  we  can  not  hold  out  the 


SPECIFIC  PRINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  141 

prospect  that  no  room  shall  be  left  for  dubiety,  and  that  all 
may  be  reduced  to  a  kind  of  dogmatical  precision  and  cer- 
tainty. It  would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  this,  considering 
both  the  peculiar  character  and  the  manifold  variety  of  the 
field  embraced  by  the  Typology  of  Scripture.  That  there 
may  still  be  particular  cases  in  which  it  will  be  questionable 
whether  any  thing  properly  typical  belonged  to  them,  and 
others  in  which  a  diversity  of  view  may  be  allowable  in  ex- 
plaining what  is  typical,  seems  to  us  by  no  means  improb- 
able. And  in  the  specific  rules  or  principles  of  interpreta- 
tion that  follow,  we  do  not  aim  at  dispelling  every  possible 
doubt  and  ambiguity  connected  with  the  subject,  but  only  at 
fixing  its  more  prominent  and  characteristic  outlines.  We 
believe  that,  with  ordinary  care  and  discretion,  they  will  be 
sufficient  to  guard  against  material  error. 

I.  The  first  principle  we  lay  down  has  respect  merely  to 
the  amount  of  what  is  typical  in  Old  Testament  Scripture ;  it 
is,  that  nothing  is  to  be  regarded  as  typical  of  the  good  things 
under  the  Gospel  which  was  itself  of  a  forbidden  and  sinful 
nature.  Something  approximating  to  this  has  been  men- 
tioned among  the  too  general  and  obvious  directions  which 
philological  writers  have  been  accustomed  to  give  upon  the 
subject.  It  is  indeed  so  much  of  that  description,  that  though 
in  itself  a  principle  most  necessary  to  be  observed  and  acted 
on,  yet  we  should  have  refrained  from  any  express  announce- 
ment or  formal  proof  of  it  here,  were  it  not  still  frequently 
set  at  naught,  alike  in  theological  discussions  and  in  popular 
discourses. 

The  ground  of  the  principle,  in  the  form  here  given  to  it, 
lies  in  the  connection  whicn  the  type  has  with  the  antitype, 
and  consequently  with  God.  The  antitype  standing  in  the 
things  which  belong  to  God's  everlasting  kingdom,  is  neces- 
sarily of  God ;  and  so,  by  a  like  necessity,  the  type  which  was 
intended  to  foreshadow  and  prepare  for  it,  must  have  been 
equally  of  Him.  Whether  a  symbol  in  religion  or  a  fact  in 
providence,  it  must  have  borne  upon  it  the  divine  sanction 
and  approval;  otherwise  there  could  have  been  no  proper 
connection  between  the  ultimate  reality  and  its  preparatory 
exhibitions.  So  far  as  the  institutions  of  religion  are  con- 
cerned, this  is  readily  admitted;  and  no  one  would  think  of 
contending  for  the  idolatrous  rites  of  worship  which  were 
sometimes  introduced  into  the  services  of  the  sanctuary, 
being  ranked  among  the  shadows  of  the  better  things  to 
come. 

But  there  is  not  the  same  readiness  to  perceive  the  incon- 


142  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCBIPTUEE. 

gruity  of  admitting  to  the  rank  of  types,  actions  which  were 
as  far  from  being  accordant  with  the  mind  of  God,  as  the 
impurities  of  an  idolatrous  worship.  Such  actions  might,  no 
doubt,  differ  in  one  respect  from  the  forbidden  services  of 
religion ;  they  might  in  some  way  be  overruled  by  God  for 
the  accomplishment  of  His  own  purposes,  and  thereby  be 
brought  into  a  certain  connection  with  Himself.  This  was 
never  more  strikingly  done  than  in  respect  to  the  things 
which  befell  Jesus — the  great  antitype — which  were  carried 
into  effect  by  the  operation  of  the  fiercest  malice  and  wick- 
edness, and  yet  were  the  very  things  which  the  determinate 
counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God  had  appointed  before  to 
be  done.  It  is  one  thing,  however,  for  human  agents  and 
their  actions  being  controlled  and  directed  by  God,  so  as, 
amid  all  their  impetuosity  and  uproar,  to  be  constrained  to 
work  out  His  righteous  purposes ;  but  another  thing  for  them 
to  stand  in  such  close  relationship  to  Him,  that  they  become 
express  and  authoritative  revelations  of  His  will.  This  last 
is  the  light  in  which  they  must  be  contemplated,  if  a  typical 
character  is  ascribed  to  them.  For  the  time  during  which 
typical  things  lasted,  they  stood  as  temporary  representations 
under  God's  own  hand  of  what  He  was  going  permanently 
to  establish  under  the  Gospel.  And  therefore,  as  amid  those 
higher  transactions,  where  the  antitype  comes  into  play,  we 
exclude  whatever  was  the  offspring  of  human  ignorance  or 
Binfulness ;  so  in  the  earlier  and  inferior  transactions,  which 
were  typical  of  what  was  to  come,  we  must,  in  like  manner, 
exclude  the  workings  of  all  earthly  and  sinful  affections. 
The  typical  and  the  antitypical  alike  must  bear  on  them  the 
image  and  superscription  of  God. 

Violations  of  this  obvious  principle  are  much  less  fre- 
quently met  with  now  than  they  were  in  the  theological 
writings  of  last  century.  Still,  however,  instances  are  occa- 
sionally forcing  themselves  on  one's  notice.  And  in  popular 
discourses,  none  perhaps  occurs  more  frequently  than  that 
connected  with  Jacob's  melancholy  dissimulation  and  cun- 
ning policy  for  obtaining  the  blessing.  His  receiving  the 
blessing,  we  are  sometimes  told,  in  the  garments  of  Esau, 
which  his  mother  arrayed  him  with,  "  is  to  be  viewed  as  a 
faint  shadow  of  our  receiving  the  blessing  from  God  in  the 
garments  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  all  the  children  of  the  prom 
ise  wear.  It  was  not  the  feigned  venison,  but  the  borrowed 

garments,  that  procured  the  blessing.     Even  so,  we  are  not 
lessed  by  God  for  our  good  works,  however  pleasing  to  Him, 
but  for  the  righteousness  of  our  Redeemer."     What  a  con- 
founding of  things  that  differ !     The  garments  of  the  "  pro- 


SPECIFIC  PKINCIPLES  AND  BISECTIONS.  143 

Fane"  Esau  made  to  image  the  spotless  righteousness  of  Jesus! 
And  the  fraudulent  use  of  the  one  by  Jacob  viewed  as  repre- 
senting the  believer's  simple  and  confiding  trust  in  the  other ! 
Between  things  so  essentially  different  there  can  manifestly 
be  nothing  but  superficial  resemblances,  which  necessarily 
vanish  the  moment  the  real  facts  of  the  case  rise  into  view. 
It  was  not  Jacob's  imposing  upon  his  father's  infirmities,  either 
with  false  venison  or  with  borrowed  garments,  which  in  re- 
ality procured  for  him  the  blessing.  The  whole  that  can  be 
said  of  these  is,  that  in  the  actual  circumstances  of  the  case 
they  had  a  certain  influence,  of  an  instrumental  kind,  in 
leading  Isaac  to  pronounce  it.  But  what  had  been  thus 
spoken  on  false  grounds  and  under  mistaken  apprehensions, 
might  surely  have  been  recalled  when  the  truth  came  to  be 
known.  The  prophet  Nathan,  at  a  later  age,  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  revoking  the  word  he  had  too  hastily  spoken  to  David 
respecting  the  building  of  the  temple,  though  it  had  been 
elicited  by  something  very  different  from  falsehood — by  a 
novel  and  unexpected  display  of  real  goodness.1  And  in  the 
case  now  under  consideration,  if  there  had  been  nothing 
more  in  the  matter  than  the  mock  venison  and  the  hairy  gar- 
ments of  Esau,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  blessing 
that  had  been  pronounced  would  have  been  instantly  with- 
drawn, and  the  curse  which  Jacob  dreaded  made  to  take  its 
place.  In  truth,  Isaac  erred  in  what  he  purposed  to  do,  not 
less  than  Jacob  in  beguiling  him  to  do  what  ne  had  not  pur- 
posed. He  was  going  to  utter  in  God's  name  a  prophetic 
word,  which,  if  it  had  taken  effect  as  he  intended,  would 
have  contravened  the  oracle  originally  given  to  Rebekah 
concerning  the  two  children,  even  prior  to  their  birth — that 
the  elder  should  serve  the  younger.  And  there  were  not 
wanting  indications  in  the  spirit  and  behavior  of  the  sons, 
after  they  had  sprung  to  manhood,  which  might  have  led  a 
mind  of  spiritual  discernment  to  descry  in  Jacob,  rather  than 
Esau,  the  heir  of  blessing.  But  living  as  Isaac  had  done  for 
the  most  part  of  his  life  in  a  kind  of  luxurious  ease,  in  his 
declining  years  especially  yielding  too  much  to  the  fleshly 
indulgences  assiduously  ministered  to  by  the  hand  of  Esau, 
the  eye  of  his  mind,  like  that  of  his  body,  grew  dim,  and  he 
lost  the  correct  perception  of  the  truth.  But  when  he  saw 
how  the  providence  oi  God  had  led  him  to  bestow  the  bless- 
ing otherwise  than  he  himself  had  designed,  the  truth  rushed 
at  once  upon  his  soul.  "He  trembled  exceedingly" — not 
simply,  nor  perhaps  chiefly,  because  of  the  deceit  that  had 

i  2  Sam.  vii.  3. 


144  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

been  practiced  upon  his  blindness,  but  because  of  the  worse 
spiritual  blindness  which  had  led  him  to  err  so  grievously 
from  the  revealed  purpose  of  God.  And  hence,  even  after 
the  discovery  of  Jacob's  fraudulent  behavior,  he  declared 
with  the  strongest  emphasis,  "  Yea,  and  he  shall  be  blessed." 

Thus,  when  the  real  circumstances  of  the  case  are  consid- 
ered, there  appears  no  ground  whatever  for  connecting  the 
improper  conduct  of  Jacob  with  the  mode  of  a  sinner's  justi- 
fication. The  resemblances  that  may  be  found  between  them 
are  quite  superficial  or  arbitrary.  And  such  always  are  the 
resemblances  which  appear  between  the  workings  of  evil  in 
man,  and  the  good  that  is  of  God.  The  two  belong  to  essen- 
tially different  spheres,  and  a  real  analogy  or  a  divinely  or- 
dained connection  can  not  possibly  unite  them  together.  The 
principle,  however,  may  be  carried  a  step  further.  As  the 
operations  of  sin  can  not  prefigure  the  actings  of  righteous- 
ness, so  the  direct  results  and  consequences  of  sin  can  not 
justly  be  regarded  as  typical  representations  of  the  exercises 
of  grace  and  holiness.  When,  therefore  (to  refer  again  to  the 
history  of  Jacob),  the  things  that  befell  him  in  God's  provi- 
dence, on  account  of  his  unbrotherly  and  deceitful  conduct, 
are  represented  as  typical  foreshadowings  of  Christ's  work  of 
humiliation— Jacob  s  withdrawal  from  his  father's  house  pre- 
figuring Christ's  leaving  the  region  of  glory  and  appearing  as 
a  stranger  on  the  earth — Jacob's  sleeping  on  the  naKed  ground 
with  nothing  but  a  stone  for  his  pillow,  Christ's  descent  into 
the  lowest  depths  of  poverty  and  shame,  that  He  might  after- 
wards be  exalted  to  the  head-stone  of  the  corner,  and  so  forth ; l 
— in  such  representations  there  is  manifestly  a  stringing  to- 
gether of  events  which  have  no  fundamental  agreement,  and 
possess  no  mutual  relations.  In  the  one  case  Jacob  was 
merely  suffering  the  just  reward  of  his  misdeeds ;  while  the 
Redeemer,  in  the  other  and  alleged  parallel  transactions,  was 
voluntarily  giving  the  highest  display  of  the  holy  love  that 
animated  His  bosom  for  the  good  of  men.  And  whatever 
there  might  be  at  certain  points  of  an  outward  and  formal 
resemblance  between  them,  it  is  in  the  nature  of  things  im- 
possible that  there  could  be  a  real  harmony  and  an  ordained 
connection. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  we  apply  the  principle  now 
under  consideration  to  the  extent  merely  of  denying  a  typical 
connection  between  what  in  former  times  appeared  of  evil  on 
the  part  of  man,  and  the  good  subsequently  introduced  by 
God.  And  we  do  so  on  the  ground  that  such  things  only  as 

i  Kanne'a  Christus  in  Alien  Testament,  Th.  ii.  p.  133,  etc. 


SPECIFIC  PRINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  145 

He  sanctioned  and  approved  in  the  past,  could  foreshadow 
the  higher  and  better  things  which  were  to  be  sanctioned 
and  approved  by  Him  in  the  future.  But  as  all  the  man- 
ifestations of  truth  have  their  corresponding  and  antago- 
nistic manifestations  of  error,  it  is  perfectly  warrantable 
and  scriptural  to  regard  the  form  of  evil  which  from  time 
to  time  confronted  the  type,  as  itself  the  type  of  something 
similar,  which  should  afterwards  arise  as  a  counter-form  of 
evil  to  the  antitype.  Antichrist,  therefore,  may  be  said  to 
have  had  his  types  as  well  as  Christ.  Hagar  was  the  type  of 
a  carnal  Church,  that  should  be  in  bondage  to  the  elements 
of  the  world,  and  of  a  spirit  at  enmity  with  God,  as  Sarah 
was  of  a  spiritual  Church,  that  should  possess  the  freedom  and 
enjoy  the  privileges  of  God's  true  children.  Egpyt,  Edom, 
Assyria,  Babylon  without,  and  Saul,  Ahithophel,  Absalom, 
and  others  within  the  circle  of  the  Old  Covenant,  have  each 
their  counterpart  in  the  things  belonging  to  the  history  of 
Christ  and  His  Church  of  the  rJew  Testament.  In  strictness 
of  speech,  it  is  the  other  class  of  relations  alone  which  carry 
with  them  the  impress  and  ordination  of  God ;  but  as  God  s 
acts  and  operations  in  His  Church  never  fail  to  call  into  ex- 
istence the  world's  enmity  and  opposition,  so  the  forms  which 
this  assumed  in  earlier  times  might  well  be  regarded  as  pro- 
phetic of  those  which  were  afterwards  to  appear.  And  if  so 
with  the  evil  itself,  still  more  with  the  visitations  of  severity 
sent  to  chastise  the  evil ;  for  these  come  directly  from  God. 
The  judgments,  therefore,  He  inflicted  on  iniquity  in  the  past, 
typified  like  judgments  on  all  similar  aspects  of  iniquity  in 
the  future.  And  the  period  when  the  good  shall  reach  its 
full  development  and  final  triumph,  shall  also  be  that  in 
which  the  work  of  judgment  shall  pour  its  floods  of  perpet- 
ual desolation  upon  the  evil. 

II.  We  pass  on  to  another,  which  must  still  also  be  a  some- 
what negative  principle  of  interpretation,  viz.,  that  in  deter- 
mining the  existence  and  import  of  particular  types,  we  must 
be  guided,  not  so  much  by  any  knowledge  possessed,  or  supposed  to 
be  possessed,  by  the  ancient  worshippers  concerning  their  prospec- 
tive fulfilment,  as  from  the  light  furnished  by  their  realization  in 
the  great  facts  and  revelations  of  the  Gospel. 

Whether  we  look  to  the  symbolical  or  to  the  historical 
types,  neither  their  own  nature,  nor  God's  design  in  appoint- 
ing them,  could  warrant  us  in  drawing  very  definite  and  con- 
clusive inferences  regarding  the  insight  possessed  by  the  Old 
Testament  worshippers  into  their  prospective  or  Gospel  im- 
port. The  one  formed  part  of  an  existing  religion,  and  the 
VOL.  i. — 10. 


U6 

other  of  a  course  of  providential  dealings ;  and  in  that  more 
immediate  respect  tnere  were  certain  truths  they  embodied, 
and  certain  lessons  they  taught,  for  those  who  had  directly 
to  do  with  them.  Their  fitness  for  unfolding  such  truths  and 
lessons  formed,  as  we  have  seen,  the  groundwork  of  their 
typical  connection  with  Gospel  times.  But  though  they  must 
have  been  understood  in  that  primary  aspect  by  all  sincere 
and  intelligent  worshippers,  these  did  not  necessarily  per- 
ceive their  further  reference  to  the  things  of  Christ's  king- 
dom. Nor  does  the  reality  or  the  precise  import  of  their 
typical  character  depend  upon  the  correctness  or  the  extent 
of  the  knowledge  held  respecting  it  by  the  members  of  the 
Old  Covenant.  For  the  connection  implied  in  their  possess- 
ing such  a  character  between  the  preparatory  and  trie  final 
dispensations  was  not  of  the  Church's  forming,  but  of  God's; 
and  a  very  considerable  part  of  the  design  which  He  intended 
these  to  serve  with  ancient  believers,  may  have  been  accom- 
plished, though  they  knew  little,  and  perhaps  in  some  cases 
nothing,  of  the  germs  that  lay  concealed  in  them  of  better 
things  to  come.  These  germs  were  concealed  in  all  tvpical 
events  and  institutions  considered  simply  by  themselves — 
since  the  events  and  institutions  had  a  significance  and  use 
for  the  time  then  present,  apart  from  what  might  be  evolved 
in  the  future  purposes  of  God.  Now,  we  are  expressly  told, 
even  in  regard  to  direct  prophecies  of  Gospel  times,  that  not 
only  the  persons  to  whom  they  were  originally  delivered,  but 
the  very  individuals  through  whom  they  were  communicated, 
did  not  always  or  necessarily  understand  their  precise  mean- 
ing. Sometimes,  at  least,  they  had  to  assume  the  position  of 
inquirers,  in  order  to  get  the  more  exact  and  definite  infor- 
mation which  they  desired;1  and  it  would  seem,  from  the 
case  of  Daniel,  that  even  then  they  did  not  always  obtain  it. 
The  prophets  were  not  properly  the  authors  of  their  own  pre- 
dictions, but  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Their  knowledge,  therefore,  of  the  real  meaning  of  the  proph- 
ecies they  uttered,  was  an  entirely  separate  thing  from  the 
prophecies  themselves;  and  if  we  knew  what  it  was,  it  would 
still  by  no  means  conclusively  fix  their  full  import  Such 
being  the  case  in  regard  even  to  the  persons  who  uttered  the 
spoken  and  direct  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament,  how  pre- 
posterous would  it  be  to  make  the  insight  obtained  by  be- 
lievers generally  into  the  indirect  and  veiled  prophecies  (as 
the  types  may  be  called),  the  ground  and  standard  of  the 
Gospel  truth  they  embodied!  In  each  case  alike  it  is  the 

i  Dan.  xii.  8;  1  Pet  L  12. 


SPECIFIC  PKINCIPLES  AND  BISECTIONS.  147 

mind  of  God,  not  the  discernment  or  faith  of  the  ancient  be- 
liever, that  we  have  properly  to  do  with. 

Obvious  as  this  may  appear  to  some,  it  has  been  very  com 
monly  overlooked ;  and  typical  explanations  have,  in  conse- 
quence, too  often  taken  tne  reverse  direction  of  what  they 
should  have  done.  Writers  in  this  department  are  constantly 
telling  us  how  in  former  times  the  eye  of  faith  looked  through 
the  present  to  the  future,  and  assigning  that  as  the  reason 
why  our  present  should  be  contemplated  in  the  remote  past. 
Thus,  in  a  once  popular  work,  Adam  is  represented  as  having 
"  believed  the  promise  concerning  Christ,  in  whose  commem- 
Dration  he  offered  continual  sacrifice;  and  in  the  assurance 
thereof  he  named  his  wife  Eve,  that  is  to  say,  life,  and  he 
called  his  son  Seih,  settled,  or  persuaded  in  Christ."1  Another 
exalts  in  like  manner  the  faith  of  Zipporah,  and  regards  her, 
when  she  said  to  Moses,  "A  bloody  husband  thou  art,  be- 
cause of  the  circumcision,"  as  announcing,  "  through  one  of 
her  children,  the  Jehovah  as  the  future  Redeemer  and  bride- 
groom." *  Another  presents  Moses  to  our  view  as  wondering 
at  the  great  sight  of  the  burning  bush,  "  because  the  great  mys- 
tery of  the  incarnation  and  sufferings  of  Christ  was  there 
represented ;  a  great  sight  he  might  well  call  it,  when  there 
was  represented  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  suffering  a  dreadful 
death,  and  rising  from  the  dead."*  And  Owen,  speaking  of 
the  Old  Testament  believers  generally,  says,  "  Their  faith  in 
God  was  not  confined  to  the  outward  things  they  enjoyed, 
but  on  Christ  in  them,  and  represented  by  them.  They  be- 
lieved that  they  were  only  resemblances  of  Him  and  His 
mediation,  which,  when  they  lost  the  faith  of,  they  lost  all 
acceptance  with  God  in  their  worship."4  Writers  of  a  differ- 
ent class,  and  of  later  date,  have  followed  substantially  in  the 
same  track.  Warburton  maintains  with  characteristic  dog- 
matism, that  the  transaction  with  Abraham,  in  offering  up 
Isaac,  was  a  typical  action,  in  which  the  patriarch  had  sceni- 
cally  represented  to  his  view  the  sufferings,  death,  and  resur- 
rection of  Christ;  and  that  on  any  other  supposition  there 
can  be  no  right  understanding  of  the  matter.8  Dean  Graves 

1  Fisher's  Marrow  of  Modern  Divinity,  pt.  i.  ch.  ii. 

8  Kanne's  Christus  in  Alt.  Test.  i.  p.  100. 

a  History  of  Redemption.     By  Jonathan  Edwards.     Period  i.  p.  4. 

*  Owen  on  Heb.  viii.  5.     In  another  part  of  his  writings,  however,  we  find 
him  saying,  "Although  those  (Old  Testament)  things  are  now  full  of  light 
and  instruction  to  us,  evidently  expressing  the  principal  works  of  Christ's 
mediation,  yet  they  were  not  so  unto  them.     The  meanest  believer  may  now 
find  out  more  of  the  work  of  Christ  in  the  types  of  the  Old  Testament,  than 
any  prophet  or  wise  man  could  have  done  of  old." — On  the  Person  of  Christ, 
ch.  viii. 

•  Legation  of  Moses,  b.  vi  §  5. 


148  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOKIPTUBE. 

expresses  his  concurrence  in  this  interpretation,  as  does  also 
Mr.  Faber,  who  says  that  "Abraham  must  have  clearly  under- 
stood the  nature  of  that  awful  transaction  by  which  the  day 
of  Christ  was  to  be  characterized,  and  could  not  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  benefits  about  to  be  procured  by  it."  *  And, 
to  mention  no  more,  Chevallier  intimates  a  doubt  concerning 
the  typical  character  of  the  brazen  serpent,  because  "it  is 
not  plainly  declared,  either  in  the  Old  or  the  New  Testament, 
to  have  been  ordained  by  God  purposely  to  represent  to  the 
Israelites  the  future  mysteries  of  the  Gospel  revelation."  * 

These  quotations  sufficiently  show  how  current  the  opinion 
has  been,  and  still  is,  that  the  persons  who  lived  amid  the 
types  must  have  perfectly  understood  their  typical  character, 
and  that  by  ihdr  knowledge  in  this  respect  we  are  bound  in 
great  measure,  if  not  entirely,  to  regulate  ours.  It  is,  how- 
ever, a  very  difficult  question,  and  one  (as  we  have  already 
had  occasion  to  state)  on  which  we  should  seldom  venture  to 
give  more  than  an  approximate  deliverance,  how  far  the 
realities  typified  even  by  the  more  important  symbols  and 
transactions  of  ancient  times  were  distinctly  perceived  by 
any  individual  who  lived  prior  to  their  actual  appearance. 
The  reason  for  this  uncertainty  and  probable  ignorance  is 
the  same  with  that  which  has  been  so  clearly  exhibited  by 
Bishop  Horsley,  and  applied  in  refutation  of  an  infidel  objec- 
tion, in  the  closely  related  field  of  prophecy.  It  was  neces- 
sary, for  the  very  ends  of  prophecy,  that  a  certain  disguise 
should  remain  over  the  events  it  foretold,  till  they  became 
facts  in  providence ;  and  therefore,  "  whatever  private  infor- 
mation the  prophet  might  enjoy,  the  Spirit  of  God  would 
never  permit  him  to  disclose  the  ultimate  intent  and  particu- 
lar meaning  of  the  prophecy."*  Types  being  a  species  of 
prophecy,  and  from  their  nature  less  precise  and  determinate 
in  meaning,  they  must  certainly  have  been  placed  under  the 
veil  of  a  not  inferior  disguise.  Whatever  insight  more  ad- 
vanced believers  might  have  had  into  their  ultimate  design, 
it  could  neither  be  distinctly  announced,  nor,  if  announced, 
serve  as  a  sufficient  directory  for  us;  it  could  only  furnish, 
according  to  the  measure  of  light  it  contained,  comfort  and 
encouragement  to  themselves.  And  whether  that  measure 
might  be  great  or  small,  vague  and  general,  or  minute  and 
particular,  we  should  not  be  bound,  even  if  we  knew  it,  to 
abide  by  its  rule ;  for  here,  as  in  prophecy,  the  judgment  of 
the  early  Church  "  must  still  bow  down  to  time  as  a  more 
informed  expositor." 

1  Treatise  on  the  Three  Dispensations,  voL  ii.  p.  57. 

*  Historical  Types,  p.  221.  a  Horsley's  Works,  vol.  i.  pp.  271-273. 


SPECIFIC  PBINOIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  149 

That  the  sincere  worshippers  of  God  in  former  ages,  espe- 
cially such  as  possessed  the  higher  degrees  of  spiritual  thought 
and  discernment,  were  acquainted  not  only  with  God's  gen- 
eral purpose  of  redemption,  but  also  with  some  of  its  more 
prominent  features  and  results,  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt. 
It  is  impossible  to  read  those  portions  of  Old  Testament 
Scripture  which  disclose  the  feelings  and  expectations  of 
gifted  minds,  without  being  convinced  that  considerable 
light  was  sometimes  obtained  respecting  the  work  of  sal- 
vation. We  shall  find  an  opportunity  for  inquiring  more 
particularly  concerning  this,  when  we  come  to  treat,  in  a 
subsequent  part  of  our  investigations,  respecting  the  connec- 
tion between  the  moral  legislation  and  the  ceremonial  insti- 
tutions of  Moses.  But  that  the  views  even  of  the  better  part 
of  the  Old  Testament  worshippers  must  have  been  compara- 
tively dim,  and  that  their  acceptance  as  worshippers  did  not 
depend  upon  the  clearness  of  their  discernment  in  regard  to 
the  person  and  kingdom  of  Christ,  is  evident  from  what  was 
stated  in  our  second  chapter  as  to  the  relatively  imperfect 
nature  of  the  earlier  dispensations,  and  the  childhood  state 
of  those  who  lived  under  them.  It  was  the  period  when,  as 
is  expressly  stated  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,1  "the  way 
into  the  holiest  of  all  was  not  yet  made  manifest;"  or,  in  other 
words,  when  the  method  of  salvation  was  not  fully  disclosed 
to  the  view  of  God's  people.  And  though  we  may  not  be 
warranted  to  consider  what  is  written  of  the  closing  age  of 
Old  Testament  times  as  a  fair  specimen  of  their  general  char- 
acter, yet  we  can  not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact,  that  not  only 
did  much  prevailing  ignorance  then  exist  concerning  the 
better  things  of  the  New  Covenant,  but  that  instances  occur 
even  of  genuine  believers,  who  still  betrayed  an  utter  mis- 
apprehension of  their  proper  nature.  Thus  Nathanael  was 
pronounced  "an  Israelite  indeed,  in  whom  there  was  no 
guile,"  while  he  obviously  labored  under  inadequate  views 
of  Christ's  person  and  work.  And  no  sooner  had  Peter  re- 
ceived the  peculiar  benediction  bestowed,  on  account  of  his 
explicit  confession  of  the  truth,  than  he  gave  evidence  of  his 
ignorance  of  the  design,  and  his  repugnance  to  the  thought, 
of  Christ's  sufferings  and  death.  Such  things  occurring  on 
the  very  boundary-line  between  the  Old  and  the  New,  and 
after  the  clearer  light  of  the  New  had  begun  to  be  partially 
introduced,  render  it  plain,  that  they  may  also  have  existed, 
and  in  all  probability  did  not  unfreqently  prevail,  even  among 
the  believing  portion  of  Israel  in  remoter  times. 

«  Oh.  ix.  8. 


150  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUBE. 

But  such  being  the  case,  it  would  manifestly  be  travelling 
in  the  wrong  direction  to  make  the  knowledge,  which  was 
possessed  by  ancient  believers  regarding  the  prospective  im- 
port of  particular  types,  the  measure  of  our  own.  The  provi- 
dential arrangements  and  religious  institutions  which  consti- 
tute the  tvpes,  had  an  end  to  serve,  independently  of  their 
typical  design,  in  ministering  to  the  present  wants  of  believers, 
and  nourishing  in  their  souls  the  life  of  faith.  Their  more 
remote  and  typical  import  was  for  us,  even  more  than  for 
those  who  had  immediately  to  do  with  them.  It  does  not 
rest  upon  the  more  or  less  imperfect  information  such  persons 
might  have  had  concerning  it ;  but  chiefly  on  the  light  fur- 
nished by  the  records  of  the  New  Testament,  and  thence  re- 
flected on  those  of  the  Old.  "  It  is  Christ  who  holds  the  key 
of  the  types,  not  Moses ; "  and  instead  of  making  every  thing 
depend  upon  the  still  doubtful  inquiry,  What  did  pious  men 
of  old  descry  of  Gospel  realities  through  the  shadowy  forms 
of  typical  institutions?  we  must  repair  to  these  realities 
themselves,  and  by  the  light  radiating  from  them  over  the 
past,  as  well  as  the  present  and  future  things  of  God,  read 
the  evidence  of  that  "  testimony  of  Jesus,"  which  lies  written 
in  the  typical  not  less  than  in  the  prophetical  portions  of 
ancient  Scripture. 

III.  But  if  in  this  respect  we  have  comparatively  little  to 
do  with  the  views  of  those  who  lived  under  former  dispensa- 
tions, there  is  another  respect  in  which  we  have  much  to  do 
with  them.  And  our  next  principle  of  interpretation  is,  that 
we  must  always,  in  the  first  instance,  be  careful  to  make  our- 
selves acquainted  ivith  the  truths  or  ideas  exhibited  in  the  types, 
considered  merely  as  providential  transactions  or  religious  institu- 
tions. In  other  words,  we  are  to  find  in  what  they  were  in 
their  immediate  relation  to  the  patriarchal  or  Jewish  wor- 
shipper, the  foundation  and  substance  of  what  they  typically 
present  to  the  Christian  Church. 

There  is  no  contrariety  between  this  principle  and  the  one 
last  announced.  We  had  stated,  that  in  endeavoring  to  ascer- 
tain the  reality  and  the  nature  of  a  typical  connection  between 
Old  and  New  Testament  affairs,  we  are  not  to  reason  down- 
ward from  what  might  be  known  of  this  in  earlier  times,  but 
rather  upward  from  what  may  now  be  known  of  it,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  clearer  light  and  higher  revelations  of  the 
Gospel.  What  we  further  state  now  is,  that  the  religious 
truths  and  ideas  which  were  embodied  in  the  typical  events 
and  institutions  of  former  times,  must  be  regarded  as  forming 
the  ground  and  limit  of  their  prospective  reference  to  the 


SPECIFIC  PEINCIPLES  AND  BISECTIONS.  151 

affairs  of  Christ's  kingdom.  That  they  had  a  moral,  political, 
or  religious  end  to  serve  for  the  time  then  present,  so  far 
from  interfering  with  their  destination  to  typify  the  spiritual 
things  of  the  Gospel,  forms  the  very  ground  and  substance 
of  their  typical  bearing.  Hence  their  character  in  the  one 
respect,  the  more  immediate,  may  justly  be  regarded  as  the 
essential  key  to  their  character  in  respect  to  what  was  more 
remote. 

This  principle  of  interpretation  grows  so  necessarily  out  of 
the  views  advanced  in  the  earlier  and  more  fundamental  parts 
of  our  inquiry,  that  it  must  here  be  held  as  in  a  manner  proved. 
Its  validity  must  stand  or  fall  with  that  of  the  general  princi- 
ples we  have  sought  to  establish,  as  to  the  relation  between 
type  and  antitype.  That  relation,  it  has  been  our  object  to 
show,  rests  on  something  deeper  than  merely  outward  resem- 
blances. It  rests  rather  on  the  essential  unity  of  the  things  so 
related,  on  their  being  alike  embodiments  oi  the  same  princi- 
ples of  divine  truth ;  but  embodiments  in  the  case  of  the  type, 
on  a  lower  and  earthly  scale,  and  as  a  designed  preparation  tor 
the  higher  development  afterwards  to  be  made  in  the  Gospel. 
That,  therefore,  which  goes  first  in  the  nature  of  things,  must 
also  go  first  in  any  successful  effort  to  trace  the  connection 
between  them.  And  the  question,  What  elements  of  divine 
truth  are  symbolized  in  the  type  ?  must  take  precedence  of 
the  other  question,  How  did  tne  type  foreshadow  the  greater 
realities  of  the  antitype  ?  For  it  is  in  the  solution  we  obtain 
for  the  one,  that  a  foundation  is  to  be  laid  for  the  solution  of 
the  other. 

It  is  only  by  keeping  steadfastly  to  this  rule,  that  we  shall 
be  able,  in  the  practical  department  of  our  inquiry,  to  direct 
our  thoughts  to  substantial,  as  opposed  to  merely  superficial 
and  fanciful  resemblances.  The  palpable  want  of  discrimina- 
tion in  this  respect,  between  what  is  essential  and  what  is 
only  accidental,  formed  one  of  the  leading  defects  in  our 
elder  writers.  And  it  naturally  sprang  from  too  exclusive  a 
regard  to  the  antitype,  as  if  the  things  belonging  to  it  being 
fully  ascertained,  we  were  at  libertv  to  connect  it  with  every 
thing  formally  resembling  it  in  ancient  times,  whether  really 
akin  in  nature  to  it  or  not.  Thus,  when  Kanne,  in  a  pas- 
sage formerly  referred  to,  represents  the  stone  which  Jacob 
took  for  his  pillow  at  Bethel  as  a  type  of  Christ  in  His  char- 
acter as  the  foundation-stone  of  His  Church,  there  is,  no  doubt, 
a  kind  of  outward  similarity,  so  that  the  same  language  may, 
in  a  sense,  be  applied  to  both ;  but  there  is  no  common  prin 
ciple  uniting  them  together.  The  use  which  Jacob  made  of 
the  stone  was  quite  different  from  that  in  respect  to  which 


152  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SGTUPTUKE. 

Christ  is  exhibited  as  the  stone  laid  in  Zion — being  laid  not 
for  the  repose  or  slumber,  but  for  the  stability  and  support, 
of  a  ransomed  people.  For  this  the  strength  and  durability 
of  a  rock  were  absolutely  indispensable ;  but  they  contributed 
nothing  to  the  fitness  of  what  Jacob's  necessities  drove  him  to 
employ  as  a  temporary  pillow.  It  was  his  misfortune,  not  his 
privilege,  to  be  obliged  to  resort  to  a  stone  for  such  a  purpose. 
We  had  occasion  formerly  to  describe  in  what  manner  the 
lifting  up  of  the  brazen  serpent  in  the  wilderness  might  be 
regarded  as  typical  of  the  lifting  up  of  a  crucified  Redeemer, 
by  showing  how  the  inferior  objects  and  relations  of  the  one 
had  their  correspondence  in  the  higher  objects  and  relations 
of  the  other ! l  But  suppose  we  should  proceed  in  the  opposite 
direction,  and  should  take  these  higher  objects  and  relations 
of  the  antitype  as  the  rule  and  measure  of  what  we  are  to 
expect  in  the  type,  then,  having  a  far  wider  and  more  com- 
plicated subject  for  our  starting-point,  we  should  naturally 
set  about  discovering  many  slight  and  superficial  analogies 
in  the  type,  to  bring  it  into  a  fuller  correspondence  with  the 
antitype.  This  is  what  many  have  actually  done  who  have 
treated  of  the  subject.  Hence  we  find  them  expatiating  upon 
the  metal  of  which  the  serpent  was  formed,  and  which,  from 
being  inferior  to  some  others,  they  regard  as  foreshadowing 
Christ's  outward  meanness,  while  in  its  solidity  they  discern 
His  divine  strength,  and  in  its  dim  lustre  the  veil  of  His 
human  nature!1  What  did  it  avail  to  the  Israelite,  or  for 
any  purpose  the  serpent  had  to  serve,  of  what  particular  stuff 
it  was  made  ?  A  dead  and  senseless  thing  in  itself  it  must 
have  been  all  one  for  those  who  were  called  to  look  to  it, 
whether  the  material  was  brass  or  silver,  wood  or  stone. 
And  yet,  as  if  it  were  not  enough  to  make  account  of  these 
trifling  accidents,  others  were  sometimes  invented,  for  which 
there  is  no  foundation  in  the  inspired  narrative,  to  obtain  for 
the  greater  breadth  of  the  one  subject  a  corresponding  breadth 
in  the  other.  Thus  Guild  represents  the  serpent  as  not  having 
been  forged  by  man's  hancf  or  hammer,  but  by  a  mould,  and 
in  the  fire,  to  image  the  divine  conception  of  Christ's  human 
nature ;  and  Justin  Martyr,  with  still  greater  license,  supposes 
the  serpent  to  have  been  made  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  the  more 
exactly  to  represent  a  suffering  Redeemer.  Suppose  it  had 
been  modelled  after  this  form,  would  it  have  been  rendered 
thereby  a  more  effective  instrument  for  healing  the  diseased? 
Or  would  one  essential  idea  have  been  added  to  what  either 
an  Israelite  or  a  Christian  was  otherwise  at  liberty  to  associate 

'  Ch.  iii.  p.  73. 

•  Guild's  Moses  Unveiled,  and  Watson's  Holy  Eucharist. 


SPECIFIC  PRINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  153 

wdth  it  ?  All  such  puerile  straining  of  the  subject  arose  from 
an  inverted  order  being  taken  in  tracing  the  connection 
between  the  spiritual  reality  and  the  ancient  shadow.  It 
would  no  longer  be  thought  of,  if  the  principle  of  interpreta- 
tion here  advanced  were  strictly  adhered  to ;  that  is,  if  the 
typical  matter  of  an  event  or  institution  were  viewed  simply 
as  standing  in  the  truths  or  principles  which  it  brought  dis- 
tinctly into  view ;  and  if  these  were  regarded  as  actually  com- 
E rising  all  that  in  each  particular  case  could  legitimately 
e  applied  to  the  antitypical  affairs  of  Christ's  kingdom. 

The  judicious  application  of  this  principle  will  serve  also 
to  rid  us  of  another  class  of  extravagances  which  are  of  fre- 
quent occurrence  in  writers  of  the  Cocceian  school,  and  which 
mainly  consist,  like  those  already  noticed,  of  external  resem- 
blances, deduced  with  little  or  no  regard  to  any  real  prin- 
ciple of  agreement.  We  refer  to  the  customary  mode  of 
handling  typical  persons  or  characters,  with  no  other  pur- 
pose apparently  than  that  of  exhibiting  the  greatest  possible 
number  of  coincidences  between  these  and  Christ.  As  many 
as  forty  of  such  have  been  reckoned  between  Moses  and 
Christ,  and  even  more  between  Joseph  and  Christ.  Of  course 
a  ^reat  proportion  of  such  resemblances  are  of  a  quite  super- 
ficial and  trifling  nature,  and  are  of  no  moment,  whether  they 
happen  to  be  perceived  or  not.  For  any  light  they  throw  on 
the  purposes  of  Heaven,  or  any  advantage  they  yield  to  our 
faith,  we  gain  nothing  by  admitting  them,  and  we  lose  as 
little  by  rejecting  them.  They  would  never  have  been  sought 
for  had  the  real  nature  of  the  connection  between  type  and 
antitype  been  understood,  and  the  proper  mode  of  exhibiting 
it  been  adopted ;  nor  would  typical  persons  or  individuals  sus- 
taining a  tvpical  character  through  the  whole  course  and 
tenor  of  their  lives,  have  been  supposed  to  exist.  It  was  to 
familiarize  the  Church  with  great  truths  and  principles,  not 
to  occupy  her  thoughts  with  petty  agreements  and  fanciful 
analogies,  that  she  was  kept  so  long  conversant  with  prepar- 
atory dispensations.  And  as  that  end  might  have  been  in 
part  served  by  a  single  transaction,  or  a  special  appointment 
in  a  lifetime,  so,  whenever  it  was  served,  it  must  have  been 
by  virtue  of  its  exhibiting  important  aspects  of  divine  truth 
— such  as  were  to  reappear  in  the  person  and  work  of  Christ. 
It  is  not,  in  short,  individuals  throughout  the  entire  compass 
of  their  history,  but  individuals  in  certain  divinely  appointed 
offices  or  relations,  in  which  we  are  to  seek  for  what  is  typical 
in  this  province  of  sacred  history.1 

1  Scarcely  any  of  the  late  works  on  the  types  published  in  this  country  are 
free  from  the  extravagances  we  have  referred  to  respecting  personal  types 


154  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUBE. 

IV.  Another  conclusion  flowing  not  less  clearly  than  the 
foregoing  from  the  views  already  established,  and  which  we 
propose  as  our  next  leading  principle  of  interpretation,  is, 
that  while  the  symbol  or  institution  constituting  the  type 
has  properly  but  one  radical  meaning,  yet  tlw  fundamental  idea 
or  principle  exhibited  in  it  may  often  be  capable  of  more  than  one, 
application  to  tJie  realities  of  the  Gospd;  that  is,  it  may  bear  re- 
spect to,  and  be  developed  in,  more  than  one  department  of 
the  affairs  of  Christ's  kingdom.  But  in  illustrating  this  prop- 
osition, we  must  take  in  succession  the  several  parts  of  which 
it  consists. 

1.  The  first  part  asserts  each  tyjpe  to  be  capable  of  but  one 
radical  meaning.  It  has  a  definite  way  of  expressing  some 
fundamental  idea — that,  and  no  more.  "Were  it  otherwise, 
we  should  find  any  consistent  or  satisfactory  interpretation 
of  typical  things  quite  impracticable,  and  should  often  lose 
ourselves  in  a  sea  of  uncertainty.  An  example  or  two  may 
serve  to  show  how  far  this  has  actually  been  the  case  in  the 
past.  Glassius  makes  the  deluge  to  typify  both  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  faithful  through  baptism,  and  the  destruction  of 
the  wicked  in  the  day  of  judgment;  and  the  rule  under  which 
he  adduces  this  example  is,  that  "a  type  may  be  a  figure 
of  two,  and  even  contrary  things,  though  in  different  re- 
spects."1 In  like  manner,  Taylor,  taking  the  full  liberty  of 
such  a  canon,  when  interpreting  the  passage  of  the  Israelites 
through  the  Red  Sea  as  a  type  of  baptism,  sees  in  that  event, 
first,  "  the  offering  of  Jesus  Christ  to  their  faith,  through  the 
Red  Sea,  of  whose  death  and  passion  they  should  find  a  sure 
and  safe  way  to  the  celestial  Canaan ; "  and  then  this  other 
truth,  that  "  by  His  merit  and  mediation  He  would  carry  them 
through  all  difficulties  and  dangers,  as  deep  as  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  unto  eternal  rest."  *  In  this  last  specimen  the  Red 
Sea  is  viewed  as  representing  at  the  same  time,  and  in  rela- 

They  assume,  however,  the  most  extreme  form  in  the  German  work  of  Kanne, 
published  in  1818.  There  the  mere  similarity  of  names  is  held  as  a  conclu- 
sive proof  of  a  typical  connection;  so  that  Miriam,  sister  of  Moses,  was  a  type 
of  Mary,  for  the  Jews  call  the  former  Maria,  as  well  as  the  latter.  The 
work  is  full  of  such  puerilities.  It  is  the  same  tendency,  however,  to  rest  in 
merely  superficial  resemblances  which  led  Schb'ttgen,  for  example,  in  his 
Horai  Heb.  on  1  Cor.  x.  2,  and  leads  some  still,  to  hold  that  the  Israelites 
must  have  been  "bedewed  and  refreshed  "  by  the  cloud.  It  is  true  the  sacred 
narrative  is  silent  about  that,  nor  is  any  support  to  be  found  for  it  in  the 
Jewish  writings;  but  it  seemed  to  the  learned  author  necessary  to  make  out 
a  typical  relation  to  baptism,  and  so  he  regards  it  as  in  a  manner  self-evident. 
On  the  same  ground,  of  course,  Noah  and  his  family  must  have  been  all 
sprinkled  or  dipped  in  the  flood,  since  this  too  was  the  type  of  baptism  1 

1  Philolog.  Sac.  lib.  ii.  p.  1,  Trac.  ii.  sec.  4,  §  8.  He  quotes  from  Cornelius 
&  Lapide,  but  adopts  the  rule  as  good. 

»  Moses  and  Aaron,  p.  237. 


SPECIFIC  PRINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  155 

tion  to  the  same  persons,  both  the  atoning  I  lood  of  Christ  and 
the  outward  trials  of  life.  The  other  example  is  not  so  pal- 
pably incorrect,  nor  does  it  in  fact  go  to  the  entire  length 
which  the  rule  it  is  designed  to  illustrate  properly  warrants ; 
for  the  action  of  the  waters  in  the  deluge  is  considered  by  it 
with  reference  to  different  persons,  as  well  as  in  different 
respects.  It  is  at  fault,  however,  in  making  one  event  typical 
of  two  diverse  and  unconnected  results.  Many  other  exam- 
ples might  be  produced  of  similar  false  interpretations  from 
what  has  been  written  of  the  tabernacle  and  its  services, 
equally  indicative,  on  the  part  of  the  writers,  of  a  capri- 
cious fancy,  and  in  themselves  utterly  destitute  of  any  solid 
foundation. 

Our  previous  investigations,  we  trust,  have  removed  this 
prolific  source  of  ambiguity  and  confusion ;  for,  if  we  have  not 
entirely  failed  of  our  object,  we  have  shown  that  the  typical 
transactions  and  symbols  of  the  Old  Testament  are  by  no 
means  so  vague  and  arbitrary  as  to  be  capable  of  bearing 
senses  altogether  variable  and  inconsistent.  Viewed  as  a 
species  of  language,  which  they  really  were — a  speaking  by 
action  instead  of  words — they  could  only  reach  the  end  they 
had  to  serve  by  giving  forth  a  distinct  and.intelligible  mean- 
ing. Such  language  can  no  more  do  this  than  oral  or  written 
discourse,  if  constructed  so  as  to  be  susceptible  of  the  most 
diverse  and  even  opposite  senses.  By  the  necessities  of  the 
case,  therefore,  we  are  constrained  to  hold,  that  whatever 
instruction  God  might  design  to  communicate  to  the  Church, 
either  in  earlier  or  in  later  times,  by  means  of  the  relig- 
ious institutions  and  providential  arrangements  of  the  past 
times,  it  must  have  been  such  as  admits  of  being  derived  from 
them  by  a  fixed  and  reasonable  mode  of  interpretation.  To 
suppose  that  their  virtue  consisted  in  some  capacity  to  ex- 
press meanings  quite  variable  and  inconsistent  with  each 
other,  would  be  to  assimilate  them  to  the  uncertain  oracles 
of  heathenism. 

2.  This  is  to  be  understood  in  the  strictest  sense  of  such 
typical  acts  and  symbols,  as,  from  their  nature,  were  expres- 
sive of  a  simple,  uncompounded  idea.  In  that  case,  it  would 
be  an  incongruity  to  make  what  was  one  in  the  type,  pre- 
sent, like  a  revolving  light,  a  changeful  and  varying  aspect 
toward  the  antitype.  But  the  type  itself  might  possibly  be  of 
a  complex  nature ;  that  is,  it  might  embody  a  process  which 
branched  out  into  two  for  more  lines  of  operation,  and  so  com- 
bined two  or  more  related  ideas  together.  In  such  a  case, 
there  will  require  to  be  a  corresponding  variety  in  the  appli- 
cation that  is  made  from  the  type  to  the  antitype.  The  two- 


156  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

fold,  or  perhaps  still  more  complicated,  idea  contained  in  the 
one  must  have  its  counterpart  in  the  other,  as  much  as  if  each 
idea  had  received  a  separate  representation ;  though  due  re- 
gard must  be  paid  to  the  connection  which  they  appear  to 
have  one  with  another,  as  component  elements  of  the  same 
type.  For  example,  the  event  of  the  deluge,  recently  ad- 
verted to,  which  at  once  bore  on  its  bosom  an  elect  seed,  in 
safe  preservation  for  the  peopling  of  a  new  world,  and  over- 
whelmed in  perdition  the  race  of  ungodly  men  who  had  cor- 
rupted the  old,  unquestionably  involves  a  complex  idea.  It 
embodies  in  one  great  act  a  double  process — a  process,  how- 
ever, which  was  accomplished  simultaneously  in  both  its  parts ; 
since  the  doing  of  the  one  carried  along  with  it  the  execution 
of  the  other.  In  thinking,  therefore,  of  the  New  Testament 
antitype,  we  must  have  respect  not  only  to  the  two  ideas 
themselves  severally  represented,  but  also  to  their  relation  to 
each  other;  we  must  look  for  some  spiritual  process,  which 
in  like  manner  combines  a  work  of  preservation  with  a  work 
of  destruction.  In  the  different  fates  of  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked — the  one  as  appointed  to  salvation,  and  the  other  to 
perdition — we  have  certainly  a  twofold  process  and  result; 
but  have  we  the  two  in  a  similar  combination?  We  certainly 
have  them  so  combined  in  the  personal  history  and  work  of 
Christ,  as  His  triumph  and  exaltation  inevitably  involved  the 
bruising  of  Satan ;  and  the  same  shall  also  be  found  in  the 
final  judgment,  when,  by  putting  down  forever  all  adverse 
authority  and  rule,  Christ  shall  raise  His  Church  to  the  do- 
minion and  the  glory.  If  the  typical  connection  between  the 
deluge  and  God's  grander  works  of  preservation  and  destruc- 
tion is  put  in  either  of  these  lights,  the  objection  we  lately 
offered  to  the  interpretation  of  Glassius  will  be  obviated,  and 
the  requirements  of  a  scriptural  exegesis  satisfied.  A  like 
combination  of  two  ideas  is  found  in  the  application  made  of 
the  deluge  by  the  apostle  Peter  to  the  ordinance  of  baptism, 
as  will  be  shown  in  due  time.  And  there  are,  besides,  many 
things  connected  with  the  tabernacle  and  its  services — for 
example,  the  use  made  in  them  of  symbolical  numbers,  the 
different  kinds  of  sacrifice,  the  ritual  of  cleansing — which  are 
usually  so  employed  as  to  convey  a  complex  meaning,  and  a 
meaning  that  of  necessity  assumes  different  shades,  according 
to  the  different  modifications  employed  in  the  use  of  the  sym- 
bolical materials.  Such  differences,  however,  can  only  be  of  a 
minor  kind ;  they  can  never  touch  the  fundamental  character 
of  the  typical  phenomena,  so  as  to  render  them  expressive  iu 
one  relation  of  something  totally  unlike  to  what  they  denoted 
in  another.  A  symbolical  act  or  institution  can  as  little  be 


SPECIFIC  PRINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  157 

made  to  change  its  meaning  arbitrarily,  as  a  term  in  lan- 
guage. Its  precise  import  must  always  be  determined,  first 
by  an  intelligent  consideration  of  its  inherent  nature,  and 
then  by  the  connection  in  which  it  stands. 

3.  It  is  one  thing,  however,  to  maintain  that  a  type,  either 
as  a  whole  or  in  its  component  parts,  can  express  only  one 
meaning ;  and  another,  to  allow  more  than  one  application  cf 
it  to  the  affairs  of  Christ's  kingdom.  Not  only  is  there  an 
organic  connection  between  the  Old  and  the  New  dispensa- 
tions, giving  rise  to  the  relation  of  type  and  antitype,  but 
also  an  organic  connection  between  one  part  and  another  of 
the  Gospel  dispensation ;  in  consequence  of  which  the  ideas 
and  principles  exhibited  in  the  types  may  find  their  reali- 
zation in  more  than  one  department  of  the  Gospel  system. 
The  tyjpes,  as  well  as  the  prophecies,  hence  often  admit  of 
"  a  springing  and  germinant  accomplishment."  They  do  so 
especially  in  those  things  which  concern  the  economical  rela- 
tion subsisting  between  Christ  and  His  people ;  by  reason  of 
which  He  is  at  once  the  root  out  of  which  they  grow,  and 
the  pattern  after  which  their  condition  and  destiny  are  to  be 
formed.  If  on  this  account  it  be  necessary  that  in  all  things 
He  should  have  the  pre-eminence,  it  is  not  less  necessary  that 
they  should  bear  His  image,  and  share  in  His  heritage  of 
blessing.  So  closely  are  they  identified  with  Him  in  their 
present  experience  and  their  future  prospects,  that  they  are 
now  spoken  of  as  having  "  fellowship  with  Him  in  His  suffer- 
ings," being  ;'  planted  with  Him  in  the  likeness  of  His  death," 
and  again  "  planted  with  Him  in  the  likeness  of  His  resurrec- 
tion," "  sitting  with  Him  in  heavenly  places,"  having  "  their 
life  hid  with  Him  in  God,"  and  being  at  last  raised  to  "inherit 
His  kingdom,  and  sit  with  Him  upon  His  throne."  In  short, 
the  Church  as  a  whole  is  conformed  to  His  likeness ;  while, 
again,  in  each  one  of  her  members  is  reproduced  an  image 
of  the  whole.  Therefore  the  principles  and  ideas  which,  by 
means  of  typical  ordinances  and  transactions,  were  perpet- 
ually exhibited  before  the  eye  of  the  Old  Testament  Church, 
while  they  must  find  their  grand  development  in  Christ  Him- 
self, must  also  have  further  developments  in  the  history  of 
His  Church  and  people.  They  have  respect  to  our  relations 
and  experiences,  our  state  and  prospects,  in  so  far  as  these 
essentially  coincide  with  Christ's ;  for.  so  far,  the  one  is  but  a 
partial  renewal  or  a  prolonged  existence  of  the  other. 

There  are  things  of  a  typical  nature,  it  is  proper  to  add, 
which  in  a  more  direct  and  special  manner  bear  respect  to 
the  Church  and  people  of  Christ.  The  rite  of  circumcision, 
for  example,  the  passage  through  the  Red  Sea,  the  judgments 


158  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SUBIPTUEE. 

in  the  wilderness,  the  eating  of  manna,  and  many  similar 
things,  must  obviously  have  their  antitypes  in  the  heirs  of 
salvation  rather  than  in  Him,  who  in  this  respect  stood  alone; 
He  was  personally  free  from  sin,  and  did  not  Himself  need 
the  blessings  He  provided  for  others.  So  that,  when  the 
apostle  writes  of  the  ordinances  of  the  law,  that  they  were 
"  shadows  of  good  things  to  come,  but  the  body  is  of  Christ'' 
(Col.  ii.  17),  he  is  not  to  be  understood  as  meaning  that  Christ 
personally  and  alone  is  the  object  they  prospectively  contem- 
plated, but  Christ  together  with  His  body  the  Church — the 
events  and  interests  of  the  Gospel  dispensation.  In  this  col- 
lective sense  Christ  is  mentioned  also  in  1  Cor.  xii.  12  and 
Gal.  iii.  16.  Nor  is  it  by  any  means  an  arbitrary  sense;  for 
it  is  grounded  in  the  same  vital  truth,  on  which  we  have 
based  the  admissibility  of  a  twofold  application  or  bearing 
of  typical  things,  viz.,  the  organic  union  subsisting  between 
Christ  and  His  redeemed  people — "  He  in  them,  and  they  in 
Him." 

V.  Another  principle  of  interpretation  arising  out  of  the 
preceding  investigations,  and  necessary  to  be  borne  in  mind 
for  the  right  understanding  of  typical  symbols  and  transac- 
tions, is,  that  due  regard  must  be  had  to  the  essential  difference 
betiveen  tJie  nature  of  type  and  antitype.  For  as  the  typical  is 
divine  truth  on  a  lower  stage,  exhibited  by  means  of  out- 
ward relations  and  terrestrial  interests,  so,  when  making  the 
transition  from  this  to  the  antitypical,  we  must  expect  the 
truth  to  appear  on  a  loftier  stage,  and,  if  we  may  so  speak, 
with  a  more  heavenly  aspect.  What  in  the  one  bore  imme- 
diate respect  to  the  bodily  life,  must  in  the  other  be  found  to 
bear  immediate  respect  to  the  spiritual  life.  While  in  the 
one  it  is  seen  and  temporal  objects  that  ostensibly  present 
themselves,  their  proper  counterpart  in  the  other  are  the 
unseen  and  eternal: — there,  the  outward,  the  present,  the 
worldly;  here,  the  inward,  the  future,  the  heavenly. 

A  change  and  advance  of  the  kind  here  supposed,  enters 
into  the  very  vitals  of  the  subject,  as  unfolded  in  the  earlier 
part  of  our  inquiry.  The  reason  why  typical  symbols  and 
institutions  were  employed  by  God  in  His  former  dealings 
with  His  Church,  arose  from  the  adoption  of  a  plan  which 
indispensably  required  that  very  progression  in  the  mode  of 
exhibiting  divine  truth.  The  world  was  treated  for  a  period 
as  a  child  that  must  be  taught  great  principles,  and  prepared 
for  events  of  infinite  magnitude  and  eternal  interest,  by  the 
help  of  familiar  and  sensible  objects,  which  lay  fully  open  to 
their  view,  and  came  within  the  grasp  of  their  comprehension. 


SPECIFIC  PBINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  159 

But  now  that  we  have  to  do  with  the  things  themselves,  for 
which  those  means  of  preparation  were  instituted,  we  must 
take  care,  in  tracing  the  connection  between  the  one  and  the 
other,  to  keep  steadily  in  view  the  essential  difference  between 
the  two  periods,  and  with  the  rise  in  the  divine  plan  give  a 
corresponding  rise  to  the  application  we  make  of  what  be- 
longed to  the  ancient  economy.  To  proceed  without  regard 
to  this — to  look  for  the  proper  counterpart  of  any  particular 
type  in  the  same  class  of  objects  and  interests  as  that  to 
:  which  the  type  itself  immediately  referred — would  be  to  act 
like  those  Judaizing  Christians  who,  after  the  better  things 
had  come,  held  fast  at  once  by  type  and  antitype,  as  if  they 
stood  upon  the  same  plane,  and  were  constructed  of  the  same 
materials.  It  would  be  to  remain  at  the  old  foundations, 
while  the  scheme  of  God  has  risen  to  a  higher  place,  and  laid 
a  new  world,  as  it  were,  open  to  our  view.  If,  therefore,  we 
enter  aright  into  the  change  which  has  been  effected  in  the 
position  of  the  divine  kingdom,  and  give  to  that  its  proper 
weight  in  determining  the  connection  between  type  and 
antitype,  we  must  look  for  things  in  the  one,  corresponding 
indeed  to  those  in  the  other,  but  at  the  same  time  proportion- 
ally higher  and  greater;  and,  in  particular,  must  remember 
that,  according  to  the  rule,  internal  things  now  take  the 
place  of  external,  and  spiritual  of  bodily. 

Much  discretion,  however,  which  it  is  impossible  to  bound 
by  such  precise  and  definite  rules  as  might  meet  all  conceiva- 
ble cases,  will  be  necessary  in  applying  the  principle  now 
indicated  to  individual  examples.  In  the  majority  of  cases 
there  will  be  no  difficulty;  for  the  distinction  we  mention 
between  the  Old  and  the  New  is  so  manifest,  as  to  secure  a 
certain  degree  of  uniformity  even  among  those  who  are  not 
remarkable  for  discrimination.  And,  indeed,  the  writers  most 
liable  to  err  in  other  respects — persons  of  delicate  sensibilities 
and  spiritual  feeling — are  less  in  danger  of  erring  here,  as 
they  nave  usually  a  clear  perception  of  the  more  inward  and 
elevated  character  of  the  Gospel  dispensation.  The  point  in 
regard  to  which  they  are  most  likely  to  err  concerning  it,  and 
that  which  really  forms  the  chief  difficulty  in  applying  the 
principle  now  under  consideration,  arises  from  what  may  be 
called  the  mixed  nature  of  the  things  belonging  to  Messiah's 
kingdom.  As  contradistinguished  from  those  of  earlier  dis- 
pensations, and  rising  above  them,  we  denominate  the  reali 
ties  of  the  Gospel  spiritual,  heavenly,  eternal.  And  yet  they 
are  not  totally  disconnected  with  the  objects  of  flesh  and 
time.  The  centre-point  of  the  whole,  Jesus  Christ,  not  only 
sojourned  in  bodily  form  upon  the  earth,  but  had  certain  con- 


160  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTURE. 

ditions  to  fulfil  of  an  outward  and  bodily  kind,  which  were 
described  beforehand  in  prophecy,  and  may  also,  of  course, 
have  had  their  typical  adumbrations.  In  the  case  of  the 
Church,  too,  her  life  of  faith  is  not  altogether  of  an  inward 
nature,  and  confined  to  the  hidden  man  of  the  heart.  It 
touches  continually  on  the  corporeal  and  visible;  and  certain 
events  essentially  connected  with  her  progress  and  destiny — 
such  as  the  miraculous  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  the  calling  of  the 
Gentiles,  the  persecutions  of  the  world,  the  doom  of  Anti- 
christ— could  not  take  place  without  assuming  an  outward 
and  palpable  form.  What,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  becomes 
of  the  characteristic  difference  between  the  Old  and  the  New, 
so  far  as  such  things  are  concerned?  Must  not  type  and 
antitype  still  be  found  substantially  on  the  same  level  r 

By  no  means.  The  proper  inference  is,  that  there  are  cases 
in  which  the  difference  is  less  broadly  marked;  but  it  still 
exists.  The  operations,  experiences,  and  blessings  peculiar  to 
the  dispensation  of  the  Gospel,  are  not  all  of  a  simply  inward 
and  spiritual  nature ;  but  they  all  bear  directly  on  the  inter- 
ests of  a  spiritual  salvation,  and  the  realities  of  a  heavenly 
and  eternal  world.  The  members  of  Christ's  kingdom,  so 
iong  as  they  are  in  flesh  and  blood,  must  have  their  history 
interwoven  on  every  side  with  the  relations  of  sense  and 
time,  and  be  themselves  dependent  upon  outward  ordinances 
for  the  existence  and  nourishment  of  their  spiritual  life.  Yet, 
whatever  is  external  in  their  privileges  and  condition,  has  its 
internal  side,  and  even  its  avowed  reason,  in  things  pertain- 
ing to  the  soul's  salvation,  and  the  coming  inheritance  of 
flory.  So  that  the  spiritual  and  heavenly  is  here  always 
ept  prominently  in  view,  as  the  end  and  ooject  of  all ;  while 
in  Old  Testament  times  every  thing  was  veiled  under  the 
sensible  relations  of  flesh  and  time,  and,  excepting  to  the 
divinely  illuminated  eye,  seemed  as  if  it  did  not  look  beyond 
them. 

For  example,  the  deluge  and  baptism  so  far  agree  in  form, 
that  they  have  both  an  outward  operation;  but  the  operation 
in  the  one  case,  has  to  do  directly  with  the  preservation  and 
destruction  of  an  earthly  life,  while  in  the  other  it  bears  im- 
mediately upon  the  life  of  immortality  in  the  soul.  The  cru- 
cifixion of  Christ  and  the  slaying  ot  the  paschal  lamb  were 
alike  outward  transactions;  but  the  direct  and  ostensible 
result  contemplated  in  the  first,  was  salvation  from  the  con- 
demnation and  punishment  of  sin ;  in  the  second,  escape  from 
corporeal  death,  and  deliverance  from  the  yoke  of  an  earthly 
bondage.  In  like  manner,  it  might  be  said  to  be  as  much  an 
outward  transaction  for  Christ  to  ascend  personally  into  the 


SPEGIFIO  PRINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  161 

presence  of  the  Father,  as  for  the  high  priest  to  go  within  the 
veil  with  the  blood  of  the  yearly  atonement;  but  to  rectify 
men's  relation  to  a  worldly  sanctuary  and  an  earthly  inheri- 
tance, was  the  immediate  object  sought  by  this  action  of  the 
high  priest,  while  the  appearance  of  Christ  in  the  heavenly 
places  was  to  secure  for  His  people  access  to  the  everlasting, 
kingdom  of  light  and  glory.  In  such  cases,  the  common 
property  of  a  certain  outwardness  in  the  acts  and  operations 
referred  to,  is  far  from  placing  them  on  the  same  level;  a 
higher  element  still  appears  in  the  one  as  compared  with  the 
other.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  should  say,  as  has  often 
been  said,  that  Isaac's  bearing  the  wood  for  the  altar  typified 
Christ's  bearing  His  cross  to  Calvary,  we  bring  together  two 
circumstances  which  do  stand  precisely  upon  the  same  level, 
are  alike  outward  in  their  nature,  and  no  more  in  the  one 
than  in  the  other  involve  any  rise  to  a  higher  sphere  of  truth. 
Else,  how  should  a  common  man,  Simon  the  Cyrenian,  have 
shared  with  Christ  in  the  bearing  of  the  burden  ? 

But,  undoubtedly,  the  most  pernicious  examples  of  this 
false  style  of  typical  applications  are  those  which,  from  com- 
paratively early  times,  have  been  employed  to  assimilate  the 
New  Testament  economy  in  its  formal  appearance  and  admin- 
istration to  the  Old,  and  for  which  Rome  is  able  to  avail  her- 
self of  the  authority  of  many  of  the  more  distinguished 
Fathers.  By  means  chiefly  of  mistaken  parallels  from  Jew- 
ish to  Christian  times, — mistaken,  because  they  virtually  ig- 
nored the  rise  that  had  taken  place  in  the  divine  economy, — 
every  thing  was  gradually  brought  back  from  the  apostolic 
ideal  of  a  spiritual  community,  founded  on  the  perfect  atone- 
ment and  priesthood  of  Christ,  to  the  outwardness  and  ritu- 
alism of  ancient  times.  The  sacrifices  of  the  law,  it  was 
thought,  must  have  their  correspondence  in  the  offering  of 
the  Eucharist;  and  as  every  sacrificial  offering  must  have  a 
priest  to  present  it,  so  the  priesthood  of  the  Old  Covenant, 
determined  by  genealogical  descent,  must  find  its  substitute 
in  a  priesthood  determined  by  apostolical  succession.  It  was 
but  a  step  further,  and  one  quite  natural  in  the  circum- 
stances, to  hold,  that  as  the  ancient  hierarchy  culminated  in 
a  high  priest  at  Jerusalem,  so  the  Christian  must  have  a  sim- 
ilar culmination  in  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  In  these  and  many 
similar  applications  of  Old  Testament  things  to  the  ceremo- 
nial institutions  and  devices  of  Romanism,  there  is  a  substan- 
tial perpetuation  of  the  Judaizing  error  of  apostolic  times — 
an  adherence  to  the  oldness  and  carnality  of  the  letter,  after 
the  spiritual  life  and  more  elevated  standing  of  the  New  has 
come.  According  to  it,  every  thing  in  Christianity  as  well  as 
VOL.  i. — 11 


162  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

in  Judaism  is  made  to  turn  upon  formal  distinctions  and  rit- 
ual observances;  and  that  not  the  less  because  of  a  certain 
introduction  of  the  higher  element,  as  in  the  substitution  of 
apostolical  succession  and  the  impressed  character  of  the 
new  priesthood,  for  the  genealogical  descent  and  family  rela- 
tionship of  the  old.  Such  slight  alterations  only  affect  the 
mode  of  getting  at  the  outward  things  established,  but  leave 
the  outwardness  itself  unaffected;  they  are  of  no  practical 
avail  in  lifting  Christianity  above  the  old  Judaistic  level.1 

The  Protestant  Church,  however,  has  not  been  without  its 
false  typical  applications,  proceeding  on  the  same  fundamen- 
tal mistake.  They  are  found  especially  among  the  Grotian 
school  of  divines,  whose  low  and  carnal  tone  is  continually 
betraying  itself  in  a  tendency  to  depress  and  lower  the  spir- 
itual truths  of  the  Gospel  to  a  conformity  with  the  simple 
letter  of  Old  Testament  Scripture.  The  Gospel  is  read  not 
only  through  a  Jewish  medium,  but  also  in  a  Jewish  sense, 
and  nothing  but  externals  admitted  in  the  New,  wherever 
there  is  descried,  in  the  form  of  the  representation,  any  refer- 
ence to  such  in  the  Old.  'It  is  one  of  the  few  services  which 
neological  exegesis  has  rendered  to  the  cause  of  divine  truth, 
that  by  a  process  of  exhaustion  it  has  nearly  emptied  this 
meagre  style  of  interpretation  of  the  measure  of  plausibility 
it  originally  possessed.  But  it  is  still  occasionally  followed, 
in  the  particular  respect  now  under  consideration,  by  theolog- 
ical writers  of  a  higher  stamp.  Thus,  the  doctrine  of  election, 
as  unfolded  in  the  epistles  of  the  New  Testament,  is  held  by 
the  advocates  of  a  modified  Arminianism  to  be  improperly 
understood  of  an  appointment  to  personal  salvation  and  an 
eternal  life,  on  the  special  ground  that  the  election  of  the 
Jewish  people  was  only  their  calling  as  a  nation  to  outward 
privileges  and  a  temporal  inheritance.  Rightly  understood, 
however,  this  is  rather  a  reason  why  election  in  the  Christian 
sense  should  be  made  to  embrace  something  higher  and  bet- 
ter. For  the  proper  counterpart  under  the  Gospel  to  those 
external  relations  of  Judaism,  is  the  gift  of  grace  and  the 
heirship  of  glory — the  lower  in  the  one  case  shadowing  the 
higher  in  the  other— the  outward  and  temporal  representing 
the  spiritual  and  eternal.  Even  Macknight,  who  can  not  cer- 
tainly be  charged  with  any  excess  of  the  spiritual  element 
in  his  interpretations,  perceived  the  necessity  of  making,  as 
he  expresses  it,  "the  natural  seed  the  type  of  the  spirit- 
ual, and  the  temporal  blessings  the  emblems  of  the  eternal." 
Hence  he  justly  regards  the  outward  professing  Church  in 

1  See  this  subject  admirably  treated  in  Mr.  Litton* s  work  on  the  Church, 
p.  535,  §  7;  also  his  Bampton  Lecture,  Sermon  viii. 


SPECIFIC  PBINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  163 

tlie  one  case,  with  its  election  to  the  earthly  Canaan,  as  an- 
swering in  the  other  to  the  "  invisible  Church,  consisting  of 
believers  of  all  nations,  who,  partaking  the  nature  of  God  by 
faith  and  holiness,  are  truly  the  sons  of  God,  and  have  the 
inheritance  of  his  blessing.'  1 

The  characteristic  differences,  with  their  respective  limita- 
tions and  apparent  anomalies,  may  be  briefly  stated  thus : — It 
belongs  properly  to  the  New  dispensation  to  reveal  divine  and 
spiritual  things  distinctly  to  the  soul,  while  in  the  Old  they  are 
presented  under  the  veil  of  something  outward  and  earthly. 
The  spiritual  and  divine  itself,  which  always,  as  a  living 
undercurrent,  ran  beneath  this  exterior  veil,  might,  even 
during  the  existence  of  the  Old,  come  directly  into  view;  but 
whenever  it  did  so,  there  was  no  longer  a  figure  or  type 
of  the  true,  but  the  true  itself.  Thus,  in  so  far  as  the  seed  of 
Israel  were  found  an  election  of  God,  actually  partaking  of 
the  grace  and  blessing  of  the  covenant, — in  so  far  as  they 
were  a  royal  priesthood,  circumcised  in  heart  to  the  Lord, — 
they  showed  themselves  to  be  possessed  of  the  reality  of  a 
justified  condition  and  a  spiritual  life.  The  exhibitions  that 
may  have  been  given  by  any  of  them  of  such  a  state,  were 
not  typical  in  the  sense  of  foreshadowing  something  higher 
and  better  under  the  Gospel;  and  if  those  in  whom  they 
appeared  are  spoken  of  as  types,  it  must  be  as  specimens, 

1  On  Bom.  ix.  8.  For  the  other  side,  see  Whitby  on  the  same  chapter, 
and  on  1  Pet.  ii.  9;  Graves'  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  233.  Archbishop  Whately, 
in  his  Essays  on  the  Peculiarities  of  the  Gospel,  p.  95,  gives  the  representation  a 
somewhat  different  turn  from  Whitby  and  Graves.  He  regards  the  Israelites 
as  not  having  been  "  elected  absolutely  and  infallibly  to  enter  the  promised 
land,  to  triumph  over  their  enemies,  and  live  in  security,  wealth,  and  enjoy- 
ment; but  only  to  the  privilege  of  having  these  blessings  placed  within  their 
reach,  on  the  condition  of  their  obeying  the  law  which  God  had  given  them." 
Whence,  he  infers,  Christians  are  only  elected  in  the  same  sense  to  the  privi- 
leges of  a  Gospel  condition,  and  the  promise  of  final  salvation.  In  regard  to 
election  in  the  Gospel  sense,  such  a  representation  vanishes  before  a  few  plain 
texts, — such  as,  "Many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen;"  "Elect  according 
to  the  foreknowledge  of  God  the  Father,  through  sanctification  of  the  Spirit, 
unto  obedience  and •  sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  Jesus;"  "According  as  He 
hath  chosen  us  in  Him  before  the  foundation  of  the  world  .  .  .  having 
predestinated  us  unto  the  adoption  of  children  by  Jesus  Christ  to  Himself." 
If  such  passages  do  not  imply  election  to  a  state  of  personal  salvation,  it  is  not 
in  the  power  of  language  to  express  the  idea.  In  regard  to  the  Israelites,  also, 
the  election  and  the  promise  were  made  absolutely,— "To  thy  seed  will  I  give 
this  land," — and  the  proper  inference  respecting  those  who  afterwards  perished 
in  the  wilderness,  without  being  permitted  to  enter  the  land,  is  simply,  that 
they  were  not  of  that  portion  of  the  seed  who  were  elect,  according  to  the 
foreknowledge  of  God,  to  the  promised  inheritance.  It  is  true  they  might 
justly  be  said  to  have  lost  it  for  disobeying  the  law;  but  viewed  in  respect  to 
their  connection  with  the  calling  and  promise  of  God,  it  was  their  want  of 
faith  to  connect  them  with  these,  their  unbelief,  which  was  the  source  of  per- 
dition, the  root  at  once  of  their  disobedience,  and  of  the  disinheritance  which 
ensued.  (Heb.  iii.  19.) 


164  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBTPTUBK 

not  as  adumbrations — patterns  of  what  is  common  to  the 
children  of  faith  in  every  age.  The  only  connection  possi- 
ble in  such  a  case,  is  that  which  subsists  between  type  and 
impression,  exemplar  and  copy,  not  that  between  type  and 
antitype. 

Turning  to  the  things  of  the  New  dispensation,  we  have 
simply  to  reverse  the  statement  now  made.  While  here  the 
spiritual  and  divine  are  exhibited  in  unveiled  clearness,  it  is 
quite  conceivable  that  they  may  at  times  have  appeared  under 
the  distinctive  guise  of  the  Old,  imbedded  in  fleshly  and  ma- 
terial forms.  Especially  might  this  be  expected  to  happen 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel,  when  the  transition  was  in 
the  course  of  being  made  from  the  Old  to  the  New,  as  the 
Messiah  came  forth  to  lay  the  foundations  of  His  spiritual 
and  everlasting  kingdom  on  the  external  theatre  of  a  present 
world.  It  was  natural  at  such  a  time  for  God  graciously  to 
accommodate  His  ways  to  a  weak  faith,  and  facilitate  its  exer- 
cise, by  making  the  things  that  appeared  under  the  New  wear 
the  very  livery  of  those  that  prefigured  them  under  the  Old. 
This  is  precisely  what  was  done  in  some  of  the  more  noticea- 
ble pails  of  Christ's  earthly  history.  But  in  so  far  as  it  ivas 
done, — that  is,  in  so  far  as  some  outward  transaction  in  the 
Old  reappeared  in  a  like  outward  transaction  in  the  new. — 
their  relation  to  each  other  could  not  properly  be  that  of  type 
and  antitype,  but  only  of  exemplar  and  copy,  unless  the  New 
Testament  transaction,  while  it  bore  a  formal  resemblance  to 
that  of  the  Old,  was  itself  at  the  same  time  the  sensible  expo- 
nent of  some  higher  truth.  If  it  were  this,  then  the  relation 
would  still  be  substantially  that  of  type  and  antitype.  And 
such  indeed  it  is,  in  the  few  cases  which  actually  fall  within 
the  range  of  these  remarks,  and  which,  when  superficially 
viewed,  seem  at  variance  with  the  principle  of  interpretation 
we  are  seeking  to  establish. 

Let  us,  in  conclusion,  glance  at  the  cases  themselves. 
The  recall  of  the  infant  Jesus  from  the  land  of  Egypt,  after  a 
temporary  sojourn  there,  is  regarded  by  the  evangelist  Mat- 
thew as  the  correlative  in  New  Testament  times  to  the  de- 
liverance of  Israel  under  the  Old.  It  is  impossible  to  over- 
look the  indication  of  a  similar  connection,  though  none  of 
the  evangelists  have  expressly  noticed  it,  between  Israel's 
period  of  trial  and  temptation  for  forty  years  in  the  wilderness, 
and  Christ's  withdrawal  into  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted 
forty  days  of  the  devil.  The  evangelist  John  sets  the  singu- 
lar and  apparently  accidental  preservation  of  Christ's  limbs 
on  the  cross,  beside  the  prescription  regarding  the  paschal 
lamb,  not  to  let  a  bone  of  him  be  broken,  and  sees  in  the  one 


SPECIFIC  PRINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  165 

a  divinely  appointed  compliance  with  the  other.1  And  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,1  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  beyond 
the  gates  of  Jerusalem  is  represented,  not  indeed  as  done  to 
establish  a  necessary,  but  still  as  exhibiting  an  actual,  cor- 
respondence with  the  treatment  of  those  sin-offerings  which 
were  burned  without  the  camp.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
in  each  of  these  instances  of  formal  agreement  between  the 
Old  and  the  New,  the  transactions  look  as  if  they  were  on 
the  same  level,  and  appear  equally  outward  in  the  one  as  in 
the  other.  Shall  we  say,  then,  tnat  on  this  account  they  do 
not  really  stand  to  each  other  in  the  relation  of  tvpe  and 
antitype?  or  that  there  was  some  peculiarity  in  tne  later 
transactions,  which  still,  amid  the  apparent  sameness,  raised 
them  to  a  sufiicient  elevation  above  the  earlier  ?  This  last 
supposition  we  conceive  to  be  the  correct  one. 

First  of  all,  it  was  not  unnatural,  when  there  was  so  little 
faith  in  the  Church,  and  when  such  great  things  were  in  the 
course  of  being  accomplished,  that  certain  outward  and  pal- 
pable correspondences,  such  as  we  have  noticed,  should  have 
been  exhibited.  It  was  a  kind  and  gracious  accommodation 
on  the  part  of  God  to  the  ignorance  and  weakness  of  the  times. 
The  people  were  almost  universally  looking  in  the  wrong  di- 
rection for  the  things  connected  with  the  person  and  kingdom 
of  Messiah ;  and  He  mercifully  controlled  in  various  respects 
the  course  and  progress  of  events,  so  as,  in  a  manner,  to  force  on 
their  notice  the  marvellous  similarity  of  His  working  now  to 
what  He  had  done  in  the  days  of  old.  He  did  what  was  fitted 
to  impress  visibly  upon  the  darker  features  of  the  evangelical 
history  His  own  image  and  superscription,  and  to  mark  them 
out  to  men's  view  as  wrought  according  to  the  law  of  a  fore- 
seen and  pre-established  harmony.  Yet  we  should  not  expect 
such  obvious  and  palpable  marks  of  agreement  to  be  com- 
monly stamped  by  the  hand  of  God  upon  the  new  things  of 
His  kingdom,  as  compared  with  the  old;  we  should  rather 
regard  them  as  a  sort  of  extraordinary  and  peculiar  helps 
granted  to  a  weak  and  unenlightened  faith  at  the  beginnings 
of  the  kingdom.  And  even  when  so  granted,  we  should  not 
expect  them  to  constitute  the  whole  of  the  matter,  but  should 
suppose  something  further  to  be  veiled  under  them  than  im- 
mediately meets  the  eye — a  deeper  agreement,  of  which  the 
one  outwardly  appearing  was  little  more  than  the  sign  and 
herald. 

This  supposition  gathers  strength  when  we  reflect  that  the 
outward  agreement,  however  manifest  and  striking  in  some 

>  Oh.  xix.  Sfc.  *  Oh.  ziiL  liL 


166  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUKE. 

respects,  is  still  never  so  uniform  and  complete  as  to  convey 
the  impression  that  the  entire  stress  lay  there,  or  that  it  was 
designed  to  be  anything  more  than  a  stepping-stone  for  the 
mind  to  rise  higher.  Thus,  while  the  child  Jesus  was  for  a 
time  located  in  Egypt,  and  again  brought  out  of  it  by  the 
special  providence  of  God,  like  Israel  in  its  youth ;  yet  what 
a  difference  between  the  two  cases — in  the  length  of  time 
spent  in  the  transactions,  and  the  whole  circumstances  con- 
nected with  their  accomplishment!  Jesus  and  Israel  alike 
underwent  a  period  of  temptation  in  a  wilderness  before  en- 
tering on  their  high  calling;  but  again,  how  widely  different 
in  the  actual  region  selected  for  the  scene  of  trial,  and  the 
time  during  which  it  was  continued !  Christ's  crucifixion 
beyond  the  gates  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  preservation  of  His 
limbs  from  external  violence,  exhibited  a  striking  resemblance 
to  peculiarities  in  the  sacrifices  of  the  passover  and  sin- 
offering — enough  to  mark  the  overruling  agency  of  God; 
but  in  other  outward  things  there  were  scarcely  less  marked 
discrepancies — nothing,  for  example,  in  the  sacrifices  referred 
to,  corresponding  with  the  pierced  side  of  Jesus,  or  His  sus- 
pension on  the  cross;  and  nothing  again  in  Jesus  formally 
answering  to  the  sacrificial  rites  of  the  imposition  of  hands, 
the  sprinkling  of  blood,  or  the  burning  of  the  carcase.  These, 
and  other  defects  that  might  be  named  in  the  external  cor- 
respondence between  the  New  and  the  Old,  plainly  enough 
indicate  that  the  outward  agreement  was,  after  all,  not  the 
main  thing,  nor  the  thing  that  properly  constituted  the 
typical  connection  between  them.  Else,  where  such  agree- 
ment failed,  the  connection  must  have  failed  too ;  and  in 
many  respects  Christ  should  not  have  been  the  "  body "  of 
the  ancient  shadows  in  more,  perhaps,  than  those  in  which 
He  actually  was.  Who  would  not  shrink  from  such  a  con- 
clusion ?  But  we  can  find  no  adequate  reason  for  avoiding 
it,  except  on  the  ground  that  the  occasional  outward  coinci- 
dences between  our  Lord's  personal  history  and  things  in 
God's  earlier  dispensations  were  the  signs  of  a  typical  relation- 
ship rather  than  that  relationship  itself, — a  likeness  merely 
on  the  surface,  which  gave  indication  of  a  deeper  and  more 
essential  agreement. 

This  peculiarity  in  some  of  the  typical  applications  of 
Scripture  has  its  parallel  in  the  applications  also  sometimes 
made  of  the  prophecies.  We  merely  point  for  examples  to 
the  employment  by  St.  John,  ch.  xix.  37,  of  Zech.  xii.  10, 
"They  shall  look  on  me  whom  they  have  pierced,"  or  by  St 
Matthew  in  ch.  ii.  23,  viii.  17,  of  other  prophetical  testimonies, 
and  refer  to  the  explanations  given  of  them  in  our  Appendix. 


SPECIFIC  PRINCIPLES  AND  DIRECTIONS.  167 

In  such  cases  it  is  obvious,  on  a  little  reflection,  that  the  out- 
ward and  corporeal  things  with  which  the  word  of  prophecy 
is  immediately  connected,  fell  so  far  short  of  their  full  mean- 
ing, that  if  they  were  fitly  regarded  as  a  fulfilment  of  what 
had  been  spoken,  it  was  more  because  of  the  index  they 
afforded  to  other  and  greater  things  yet  to  come,  than  of 
what  was  accomplished  in  themselves.  It  was  like  pointing 
to  the  little  cloud  in  the  horizon,  which  may  be  scarcely 
worth  noticing  in  itself,  but  which  assumes  another  aspect 
when  it  is  discerned  to  be  the  sign  and  the  forerunner  of 
gathering  vapors,  and  floods  of  drenching  rain.  The  begin- 
ning and  the  end,  the  present  sign  and  the  coming  reality,  are 
then  seen  blending  together,  and  appear  to  form  but  one 
object 


CHAPTER  SEVENTH. 

THE  PLACE  DUE  TO  THE  SUBJECT  OF  TYPOLOGY  AS  A  BRANCH  OP  THEO- 
LOGICAL STUDY,  AND  THE  ADVANTAGES  ARISING  FROM  ITS  PROPEB 
CULTIVATION. 

THE  loose  and  incorrect  views  which  so  long  prevailed  on 
the  subject  of  Typology,  and  which,  till  recently,  had  taken 
a  direction  tending  at  once  to  circumscribe  their  number  and 
lessen  their  importance,  have  had  the  effect  of  reducing  it  to 
little  more  than  a  nominal  place  in  the  arrangement  of  topics 
calling  for  exact  theological  discussion.  For  any  real  value 
to  be  attached  to  it  in  the  order  of  God's  revelations,  or  any 
light  it  is  fitted  to  throw,  when  rightly  understood,  on  the 
interpretation  of  Scripture,  we  search  in  vain  amid  the  writ- 
ings of  our  leading  hermeneutical  and  systematic  divines. 
The  treatment  it  has  most  commonly  received  at  their  hands 
is  rather  negative  than  positive.  They  appear  greatly  more 
concerned  about  the  abuses  to  which  it  may  be  carried,  than 
the  advantages  to  which  it  may  applied.  And  were  it  not 
for  the  purpose  of  exploding  errors,  delivering  cautions,  and 
disowning  unwarrantable  conclusions,  it  is  too  plain  the  sub- 
ject would  scarcely  have  been  deemed  worthy  of  any  separate 
and  particular  consideration. 

If  the  discussion  pursued  through  the  preceding  chapters 
has  been  conducted  with  any  success,  it  must  have  tended  to 
produce  a  somewhat  different  feeling  upon  the  subject.  Va- 
rious points  of  moment  connected  with  the  purposes  of  God 
and  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  must  have  suggested  them- 
selves to  the  reflective  reader,  as  capable  both  of  receiving 
fresh  light,  and  of  acquiring  new  importance  from  a  well- 
grounded  system  of  Typology.  One  entire  branch  of  the 
subject — its  connection  with  the  closely  related  field  of  proph- 
ecy— has  already,  on  account  of  the  principles  involved  in  it, 
been  considered  in  a  separate  chapter.  At  present  we  shall 
look  to  some  other  points  of  a  more  general  kind,  which  have, 
however,  an  essential  bearing  on  tne  character  of  a  divine 


ITS  PBOPER  PLACE  AND  IMPORTANCE.     169 

revelation,  and  which  will  enable  us  to  present,  in  a  variety 
of  lights,  the  reasonableness  and  importance  of  the  views  we 
have  been  endeavoring  to  establish. 

I.  We  mark,  first,  an  analogy  in  GocCs  methods  of  preparatory 
instruction,  as  adopted  by  Him  at  different  but  somewhat  cor- 
responding periods  of  the  Church's  history.  In  one  brief  pe- 
riod of  its  existence,  the  Church  of  the  New  Testament  might 
be  said  to  stand  in  a  very  similar  relation  to  the  immediate 
future,  that  the  Church  of  the  Old  Testament  generally  did 
to  the  more  distant  future  of  Gospel  times.  It  was  the  period 
of  our  Lord's  earthly  ministry,  during  which  the  materials 
were  in  preparation  for  the  actual  establishment  of  His  king- 
dom, and  His  disciples  were  subjected  to  the  training  which 
was  to  fit  them  for  taking  part  in  its  affairs.  The  process 
that  had  been  proceeding  for  ages  with  the  Church,  had,  in 
their  experience,  to  be  virtually  begun  and  completed  in  the 
short  space  of  a  few  years.  And  we  are  justly  warranted  to 
expect  that  the  method  adopted  during  this  brief  period  of 
special  preparation  toward  the  first  members  of  the  New 
Testament  Church,  should  present  some  leading  features  of 
resemblance  to  that  pursued  with  the  Old  Testament  Church, 
as  a  whole,  during  her  immensely  more  lengthened  period 
of  preparatory  training. 

Now,  the  main  peculiarity,  as  we  have  seen,  of  God's 
method  of  instruction  and  discipline  in  respect  to  the  Old 
Testament  Church,  consisted  in  the  use  of  symbol  and  action. 
It  was  chiefly  by  means  of  historical  transactions  and  sym- 
bolical rites  that  the  ancient  believers  were  taught  what  they 
knew  of  the  truths  and  mysteries  of  grace.  For  the  practical 
guidance  and  direction  of  their  conduct  they  were  furnished 
with  means  of  information  the  most  literal  and  express;  but 
in  regard  to  the  spiritual  concerns  and  objects  of  the  Messiah's 
kingdom,  all  was  couched  under  veil  and  figure.  The  instruc- 
tion given  addressed  itself  to  the  eye  rather  than  to  the  ear. 
It  came  intermingled  with  the  things  they  saw  and  handled ; 
and  while  it  necessarily  made  them  familiar  with  the  elements 
of  Gospel  truth,  it  not  less  necessarily  left  them  in  compara- 
tive ignorance  as  to  the  particular  events  and  operations  in 
which  the  truth  was  to  find  its  ultimate  and  proper  realization. 

How  entirely  analogous  was  the  course  pursued  by  our 
Lord  with  His  immediate  disciples  during  the  period  of  His 
earthly  ministry !  The  direct  instruction  He  imparted  to  them 
was,  with  few  exceptions,  confined  to  lessons  of  moral  truth 
and  duty — freeing  the  law  of  God  from  the  false  glosses  of  a 
carnal  and  corrupt  priesthood,  which  had  entirely  overlaid 


170  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

its  meaning,  and  disclosing  the  pure  and  elevated  principles 
on  which  His  kingdom  was  to  be  founded.  But  in  regard  to 
what  might  be  called  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom, — the 
constitution  of  Christ's  person,  the  peculiar  character  of  His 
work  as  the  Redeemer  of  a  sinful  and  fallen  world,  and  the 
connection  of  all  with  a  higher  and  future  world, — little 
instruction  of  a  direct  kind  was  imparted  up  to  the  very 
close  of  Christ's  earthly  ministry.  On  one  or  two  occasions, 
when  He  sought  to  convey  more  definite  information  upon 
such  points,  the  disciples  either  completely  misunderstood 
His  meaning,  or  showed  themselves  incapable  of  profiting 
by  His  instructions.1  So  that,  in  the  last  discourse  He  held 
with  them  before  His  death,  He  spoke  of  the  many  things 
He  had  yet  to  say  to  them,  but  which,  as  they  still  could  not 
bear  them,  had  to  be  reserved  to  the  teaching  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who  should  come  and  lead  them  into  all  the  truth. 
Were  they,  therefore,  left  without  instruction  of  any  kind 
respecting  those  higher  truths  and  mysteries  of  the  king- 
dom? Certainly  not;  for  throughout  the  whole  period  of 
their  connection  with  Christ,  they  were  constantly  receiving 
such  information  as  could  be  conveved  through  action  and 
symbol;  or  more  correctly,  through  action  and  allegory, 
which  was  here  made  to  take  the  place  of  symbol,  and 
served  substantially  the  same  design. 

The  public  life  of  Jesus  was  full  of  action,  and  in  that,  to 
a  large  extent,  consisted  its  fulness  of  instruction.  Every 
miracle  He  performed  was  a  type  in  history;  for,  on  the  out- 
ward and  visible  field  of  nature,  it  revealed  the  divine  power 
He  was  going  to  manifest,  and  the  work  He  came  to  achieve 
in  the  higher  field  of  grace.  In  every  act  of  healing  men's 
bodily  diseases,  and  supplying  of  men's  bodily  wants,  there 
was  an  exhibition  to  the  eye  of  sense  at  once  of  His  purpose 
to  bring  salvation  to  their  souls,  and  of  the  principles  on 
which  that  salvation  should  proceed.  In  like  manner,  when 
He  resorted  to  the  parabolic  method  of  instruction,  it  was 
but  another  employment  of  the  familiar  and  sensible  things 
of  nature,  under  the  form  of  allegory,  to  convey  still  further 
instruction  respecting  the  spiritual  and  divine  things  of  His 
kingdom.  The  procedure,  no  doubt,  involved  a  certain  exer- 
cise of  judgment  toward  those  who  had  failed  to  profit,  as 
they  ought,  by  His  more  simple  and  direct  teaching.'  But 
for  His  own  disciples  it  formed  a  cover,  through  which  He 
could  present  to  them  a  larger  amount  of  spiritual  truth,  and 

«  Matt  xvi  21-23;  Luke  iviii.  34;  John  iL  19-22,  ti 
*  Matt  ilii.  11-15. 


ITS  PROPER  PLACE  AND  IMPORTANCE.     171 

impart  a  more  correct  idea  of  His  kingdom,  than  it  was  pos- 
sible for  them,  as  yet,  by  any  other  method  to  obtain.  Every 
parable  contained  an  allegorical  representation  of  some  par- 
ticular aspect  of  the  kingdom,  which,  like  the  types  of  an 
earlier  dispensation,  only  needed  to  be  illumined  by  the 
facts  of  Gospel  history,  to  render  it  a  clear  and  intelligible 
image  of  spiritual  and  divine  realities. 

Thus  the  special  training  of  our  Lord's  disciples  very 
closely  corresponded  to  the  course  of  preparatory  dispensa- 
tions through  which  the  Church  at  large  was  conducted 
before  the  time  of  His  appearing.  Such  an  analogy,  pur- 
sued in  circumstances  so  altered,  and  through  periods  so 
widely  different,  bespeaks  the  consistent  working  and  pre- 
siding agency  of  Him  "who  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever."  It  furnishes  also  a  ready  and  effective  answer 
to  the  Socinian  argument  against  the  peculiar  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel,  on  account  of  the  comparative  silence  maintained 
respecting  them  in  the  direct  instructions  of  Christ.  "  Can 
such  doctrines,"  they  have  sometimes  asked,  "  enter  so  essen- 
tially, as  is  alleged,  into  the  original  plan  of  Christianity, 
when  its  divine  Author  Himself  says  so  little  about  them — 
when  in  all  He  taught  His  disciples  there  is  at  most  but  a 
limited  number  of  passages  which  seem  to  point  with  anv 
definiteness  in  that  direction  ?  "  The  analogy  of  God's  deal- 
ings with  His  Church,  during  the  earlier  dispensations,  fur- 
nishes us  with  the  answer.  Christ  and  the  mysteries  of 
His  redemption  were  the  common  end  contemplated  in  those 
dealings,  and  of  the  institutions  of  worship  that  accompanied 
them ;  and  yet  many  centuries  of  preparatory  instruction  and 
discipline  were  permitted  to  elapse  before  the  objects  them- 
selves were  brought  distinctly  into  view.  Should  it,  then,  be 
deemed  strange  or  unaccountable  that  the  persons  immedi- 
ately chosen  oy  Christ  to  announce  them,  were  made  to 
undergo  a  brief  but  perfectly  similar  course  of  preparation, 
under  the  eye  of  their  divine  Master?  It  could  not  have 
been  otherwise.  The  fads  of  Christianity  are  the  basis  of  its 
doctrines;  and  until  those  facts  had  become  matter  of  history, 
the  doctrines  could  neither  be  explicitly  taught  nor  clearly 
understood.  They  could  only  be  obscurely  represented  to  the 
mind  through  the  medium  of  typical  actions,  symbolical  rites, 
or  parabolical  narratives.  And  it  results  as  much  from  the 
essential  nature  of  things  as  from  the  choice  of  its  divine 
Author,  that  the  mode  of  instruction,  which  was  continued 
through  the  lengthened  probation  of  the  Old  Testament 
Church,  should  have  found  its  parallel  in  "the  beginning 
of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ." 


1/2  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUKE. 

II.  But  there  is  an  analogy  of  faith  and  practice  which  is  of 
still  greater  importance  than  any  analogy  that  may  appear  in 
the  methods  of  instruction.  However  important  it  may  be  to 
note  resemblances  in  the  mode  of  communicating  divine 
truth,  at  one  period  as  compared  with  another,  it  is  more  so 
to  know  that  the  truth,  however  communicated,  has  always 
been  found  one  in  its  tendency  and  working ;  that  the  earlier 
and  the  later,  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  Churches, 
though  differing  widely  in  light  and  privilege,  yet  breathed 
the  same  spirit,  walked  by  the  same  rule,  possessed  and  man- 
ifested the  same  elements  of  character.  A  correct  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Tvpology  of  Scripture  alone  explains  how, 
with  such  palpable  differences  subsisting  between  them, 
there  should  still  have  been  such  essential  uniformity  in 
the  result. 

In  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  especially  in  the 
epistles,  it  is  very  commonly  the  differences  between  the  Old 
and  the  New,  rather  than  the  agreements,  that  are  pressed  on 
our  notice.  A  necessity  for  this  arose  from  the  abuse  to  which 
the  Jews  had  turned  tne  handwriting  of  ordinances  delivered 
to  them  by  Moses.  In  the  carnality  of  their  minds,  they  mis- 
took the  means  for  the  end,  embraced  the  shadow  for  the 
substance,  and  so  converted  what  had  been  set  up  for  the 
express  purpose  of  leading  them  to  Christ,  into  a  mighty 
stumbling-block  to  obstruct  the  way  of  their  approach  to 
Him.  On  this  account  it  became  necessary  to  bring  prom- 
inently out  the  differences  between  the  preparatory  and  the 
ultimate  schemes  of  God,  and  to  show  that  what  was  per- 
fectly suited  to  the  one  was  quite  unsuited  to  the  other. 
But  there  were  at  the  same  time,  many  real  agreements  of  a 
most  essential  nature  between  them,  and  these  also  are  often 
referred  to  in  New  Testament  Scripture.  Moses  and  Christ, 
when  closely  examined  and  viewed  as  to  the  more  funda- 
mental parts  of  their  respective  systems,  are  found  to  teach 
in  perfect  harmony  with  each  other.  The  law  and  the  proph- 
ets of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  gospels  and  epistles  of 
the  New,  exhibit  but  different  phases  of  the  same  wondrous 
scheme  of  grace.  The  light  varies  from  time  to  time  in  its 
clearness  and  intensity,  but  never  as  to  the  elements  of  which 
it  is  composed.  And  the  very  differences  which  so  broadly 
distinguish  the  Gospel  dispensation  from  all  that  went  before 
it,  when  taken  in  connection  with  the  entire  plan  and  pur- 
pose of  God,  afford  evidence  of  an  internal  harmony  and  a 
profound  agreement. 

The  truth  of  what  we  say,  if  illustrated  to  its  full  extent, 
•would  require  us  to  traverse  almost  the  entire  field  of  Script- 


ITS  PROPER  PLACE  AND  IMPORTANCE.      173 

ure  Typology.  We  shall  therefore  content  ourselves  here 
with  selecting  a  single  point,  which,  in  its  most  obvious 
aspect,  belongs  rather  to  the  differences  than  the  agreements 
between  the  Old  and  the  New  dispensations.  For  in  what 
lo  the  two  more  apparently  and  widely  differ  from  each  other 
than  in  regard  to  tne  place  occupied  in  them  respectively  by 
the  doctrine  of  a  future  state?  In  the  Scriptures  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  eternal  world  comes  constantly  into  view ;  it 
meets  us  in  every  page,  inspirits  every  religious  character, 
mingles  with  every  important  truth  and  obligation,  and  gives 
an  ethereal  tone  and  an  ennobling  impress  to  the  whole  genius 
and  framework  of  Christianity.  Nothing  of  this,  however,  is 
to  be  found  in  the  earlier  portions  of  the  word  of  God.  That 
these  contain  no  reference  of  any  kind  to  a  future  state  of 
rewards  and  punishments,  we  are  far  from  believing,  as  will 
abundantly  appear  in  the  sequel.  But  still  the  doctrine  of 
such  a  state  is  nowhere  broadly  announced,  as  an  essential 
article  of  faith,  in  the  revelations  of  Old  Testament  Scripture ; 
it  has  no  distinct  and  easily  recognized  place  either  in  the 
patriarchal  or  the  Levitical  dispensations;  it  is  never  set 
forth  as  a  formal  ground  of  action,  and  is  implied,  rather  than 
distinctly  affirmed  or  avowedly  acted  on,  excepting  when  it 
occasionally  appears  among  the  confessions  of  pious  indi- 
viduals, or  in  the  later  declarations  of  prophecy;  so  that, 
though  itself  one  of  the  first  principles  of  all  true  religion, 
there  yet  was  maintained  respecting  it  a  studied  caution  and 
reserve  in  the  revelations  of  God  to  men,  up  to  the  time 
when  He  came  who  was  to  "  bring  life  and  immortality  to 
light."  l 

This  obvious  difference  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Tes- 
tament revelations,  in  respect  to  a  future  state,  has  been 
deemed  such  a  palpable  incongruity,  that  sometimes  the 
most  forced  interpretations  have  been  resorted  to  with  the 
view  of  getting  rid  of  the  fact,  while  at  other  times  extrava- 
gant theories  have  been  proposed  to  account  for  it.  But  we 
have  no  need  to  look  further  than  to  the  typical  character  of 
God's  earlier  dispensations  for  a  measure  of  satisfaction  re- 
specting the  difficulty — and  we  shall  find  it  in  nothing  else. 
For,  leave  this  out  of  view — suppose  that  God's  method  of 

1  A  clear  proof  in  a  single  instance  of  what  is  here  said  of  the  Old  Testa- 
nent  in  respect  to  an  eternal  world,  may  be  found  in  what  is  written  of  Enoch, 
"He  was  not,  for  God  took  him,"  and  this  because  he  had  walked  with  God. 
A  causal  connection  plainly  existed  between  his  walk  on  earth  and  his  removal 
to  God's  presence;  and  yet  this  is  so  indicated  as  clearly  to  show  that  it  was 
the  divine  purpose  to  spread  a  veil  of  secrecy  over  the  future  world,  as  if  the 
distinct  knowledge  of  it  depended  on  conditions  that  could  not  then  be  for- 
mally brought  out. 


174  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUBE. 

teaching  and  training  the  Old  Testament  Church  was  not 
necessarily  formed  on  the  plan  of  unfolding  Gospel  ideas  and 
principles  by  means  of  earthly  relations  and  fleshly  symbols 
— then  we  see  not  how  it  could  have  consisted  with  divine 
wisdom  to  keep  such  a  veil  hanging  for  so  many  ages  over 
the  realities  of  a  coming  eternity.  But  let  the  typical  ele- 
ment be  duly  taken  into  account — let  it  be  understood  that 
inferior  and  earthly  things  were  systematically  employed  of 
old  to  image  and  represent  those  which  are  heavenly  and 
divine — and  then  we  shall  be  equally  unable  to  see  how  it 
could  have  consisted  with  divine  wisdom  to  have  disclosed 
the  doctrine  of  a  future  state,  otherwise  than  under  the  fig- 
ures and  shadows  of  what  is  seen  and  temporal.  For  this 
doctrine,  in  its  naked  form,  stands  inseparably  connected 
with  the  facts  of  Christ's  death  and  resurrection,  on  which  it 
is  entirely  based  as  a  ground  of  consolation,  and  an  object  of 
hope  to  the  believer.  And  if  the  one  had  been  openly  dis- 
closed, while  the  other  still  remained  under  the  veil  of  tem- 
porary shadows,  utter  confusion  must  necessarily  have  been 
introduced  into  the  dispensations  of  God:  the  Old  Cove- 
nant, with  ordinances  suited  only  to  an  inferior  and  prepar- 
atory course  of  training,  should  have  possessed  a  portion 
of  the  light  properly  belonging  to  a  complete  and  finished 
revelation.  The  ancient  Church,  with  her  faith  in  that 
case  professedly  directed  on  the  eternal  world,  must  have 
lost  her  symbolical  relation  to  the  present;  her  experiences 
must  have  been  as  spiritual,  her  life  as  hidden,  her  conflict 
with  temptation,  and  victory  over  the  world,  as  inward  ae 
those  of  believers  under  the  Gospel.  But  then  the  Church 
of  the  Old  Testament,  being  without  the  clear  knowledge  of 
Christ  and  His  salvation,  still  wanted  the  true  foundation  for 
so  much  of  a  spiritual,  inward,  and  hidden  nature;  and  it 
must  have  been  next  to  impossible  to  prevent  false  confi- 
dences from  mingling  with  ner  expectations  of  the  future, 
since  she  had  only  the  shadowy  and  carnal  in  worship  with 
which  to  connect  the  real  and  eternal  in  blessing. 

Is  this  not  what  actually  happened  in  the  case  of  the  later 
Jews  ?  In  the  course  of  that  preparatory  training  through 
which  they  were  conducted,  an  increasing  degree  of  light  was 
at  length  imparted,  among  other  things,  in  respect  to  a  future 
state  of  reward  and  punishment.  The  later  Scriptures  con- 
tained not  a  few  quite  explicit  intimations  on  the  subject;1 
and  by  the  time  of  Christ  s  appearing,  the  doctrine  of  a  res 
urrection  from  the  dead  to  a  world  of  endless  happiness  or 

i  For  example,  in  Hos.  xiii.  14;  Dan.  xii.  2;  Isa.  xxvi.  19. 


ITS  PEOPEE  PLACE  AND  IMPOETANOE.  175 

misery,  formed  nearly  as  distinct  and  prominent  an  article  in 
the  Jewish  faith  as  it  does  now  in  the  Christian.1  Now,  this 
had  been  well,  and  should  have  only  disposed  the  Jews  to 
give  to  Jesus  a  more  enlightened  and  hearty  reception,  had 
mey  been  careful  to  couple  with  the  clearer  view  thus  ob- 
tained, and  the  more  direct  introduction  of  a  future  world, 
the  intimations  that  accompanied  it  of  a  higher  and  better 
dispensation — of  the  old  things,  under  which  they  lived,  being 
to  oe  done  away,  that  others  of  a  nobler  description  might 
take  their  place.  But  this  was  what  the  later  Jews,  as  a  class, 
failed  to  do.  Partial  in  their  knowledge  of  Scripture,  and 
confounding  together  the  things  that  differed,  they  took  the 
prospect  of  immortality  as  if  it  had  been  directly  unfolded, 
and  ostensibly  provided  for  in  the  shadowy  dispensation  it- 
self. The  result  necessarily  was,  that  that  dispensation  ceased 
in  their  view  to  be  shadowy;  it  contained  in  itself,  they 
imagined,  the  full  apparatus  required  for  sinful  men,  to  re- 
deem them  from  the  curse  of  sin,  and  bring  them  to  eternal 
life ;  and  whatever  purposes  the  Messiah  might  come  to  ac- 
complish, that  He  should  supplant  its  carnal  observances  by 
something  of  a  higher  nature,  and  more  immediately  bearing 
on  the  immortal  interests  of  man,  formed  no  part  of  their 
expectations  concerning  Him.  Thus,  by  coming  to  regard 
the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  of  happiness  and  glory  as,  in  its 
naked  or  direct  form,  an  integral  part  of  the  revelations  of  the 
Old  Covenant,  they  naturally  fell  into  two  most  serious  mis- 
takes. They  first  overlooked  the  shadowy  nature  of  their 
religion,  and  exalted  it  to  an  undue  rank  by  looking  to  it  for 
blessings  which  it  was  never  intended,  unless  typically,  to 
impart;  and  then,  when  the  Messiah  came,  they  entirely 
misapprehended  the  great  object  of  His  mission,  and  lost  all 
participation  in  His  kingdom. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  palpable  difference  in  this  respect 
between  the  Old  and  the  New.  There  was  a  necessity  in  the 
-  case,  arising  from  the  very  nature  of  the  divine  plan.  So  long 
as  the  Church  was  under  symbolical  ordinances  and  typical 
relations,  the  future  world  must  fall  into  the  background ;  the 
things  concerning  it  could  only  appear  imaged  in  the  seen 
and  present.  But  that  they  did  appear  so  imaged — in  this, 
with  all  the  outward  diversity  that  prevailed,  there  still  lay 
an  essential  agreement  between  the  Old  dispensation  and 
the  New.  The  minds  of  believers  under  the  former  neither 
were,  nor  could  be,  an  entire  blank  in  regard  to  a  future  state 
of  being.  From  the  very  first — as  we  shall  see  afterwards 

1  Acts  mil.  6,  xxvi.  6-8;  Matt.  v.  29,  x.  28,  eta 


176  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

when  we  come  to  trace  out  the  elements  of  the  primeval 
religion — there  was  in  God's  dealings  and  revelations  toward 
them  what  in  a  manner  compelled  them  to  look  beyond  a 
present  world :  it  was  so  manifestly  impossible  to  realize  here, 
with  any  degree  of  completeness,  the  objects  He  seemed  to 
have  in  view.  And  the  undercurrent  of  thought  and  expec- 
tation thus  silently  awakened  toward  the  future,  was  contin- 
ually fed  by  every  thing  being  arranged  and  ordered  in  the 
present,  so  as  to  establish  in  their  minds  a  profound  convic- 
tion of  a  divine  retribution.  The  things  connected  with  their 
relation  to  a  worldly  sanctuary,  and  an  earthly  inheritance  of 
blessing,  were  one  continued  illustration  of  the  principle  so 
firmly  expressed  by  Abraham,  "  that  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth 
must  do  right ; "  and,  consequently,  that  in  the  final  issues  of 
things,  "  it  must  be  well  with  the  righteous,  and  ill  with  the 
wicked."  The  bringing  distinctly  out  of  this  present  recom- 
pense in  the  divine  administration,  and  with  infinite  variety 
of  light  and  vividness  of  coloring,  impressing  it  on  the  con- 
sciences of  God's  people,  was  the  peculiar  service  rendered 
by  the  ancient  economy  in  respect  to  a  coming  eternity;  and 
the  peculiar  service  which,  as  a  preparatory  economy,  it  required 
to  render.  For  the  belief  of  a  present  retribution  must,  to  a 
large  extent,  form  the  basis  of  a  well-grounded  belief  in  a 
future  one.  And  for  the  believing  Israelite  himself,  who 
lived  under  the  operation  of  such  strong  temporal  sanctions, 
and  who  was  habituated  to  contemplate  the  unseen  in  the 
seen,  the  future  in  the  past,  there  was  every  thing  in  the 
visible  movements  of  Providence  around  him,  both  to  confirm 
in  him  the  expectation  of  a  coming  state  of  reward  and  pun- 
ishment, and  to  form  him  to  the  dispositions  and  conduct 
which  might  best  prepare  him  for  meeting  it.  His  position 
so  far  differed  from  that  of  believers  now,  that  he  was  not 
formally  called  to  direct  his  views  to  the  coming  world,  and 
he  had  comparatively  slender  means  of  information  concern- 
ing its  realities.  But  it  agreed  in  this,  that  he  too  was  a 
child  of  faith,  believing  in  the  retributive  character  of  God's 
administration ;  and  in  him,  as  well  as  in  us,  only  in  a  more 
outward  and  sensible  manner,  this  faith  had  its  trials  and 
dangers,  its  discouragements,  its  warrings  with  the  flesh  and 
the  world,  its  times  of  weakness  and  of  strength,  its  blessed 
satisfactions  and  triumphant  victories.  In  short,  his  light, 
BO  far  as  it  went,  was  the  same  with  ours ;  it  was  the  same 
also  in  the  nature  of  its  influence  on  his  heart  and  conduct ; 
and  if  he  but  faithfully  did  his  part  amid  the  scenes  and 
objects  around  him,  he  was  equally  prepared  at  its  close  to 
take  his  place  in  the  mansions  of  a  better  inheritance,  though 


ITS  PEOPEB  PLACE  AND  IMPORTANCE.  177 

he  might  have  to  go  to  them  as  one  not  knowing  whither  he 
went.1 

Thus  it  appears,  on  careful  examination,  that  all  was  in  its 

E  roper  place.  A  mutual  adaptation  and  internal  harmony 
inds  together  the  Old  and  the  New  dispensations,  even 
under  the  striking  diversity  that  characterizes  the  two  in 
respect  to  a  future  world.  And  the  further  the  investigation 
is  pursued,  the  more  will  there  appear  of  this  kind  of  agree- 
ment. It  will  be  found  that  the  connection  of  the  Old  with 
the  New  is  something  more  than  typical,  in  the  sense  of  fore- 
shadowing, or  formally  imaging  what  was  to  come ;  it  is  also 
inward  and  organic.  Amid  the  ostensible  differences  there 
is  a  pervading  unity  of  spirit  and  design — one  faith,  one 
life,  one  hope,  one  destiny.  And  while  the  Old  Testament 
Church,  in  its  outward  condition  and  earthly  relations,  typi- 
cally adumbrated  the  spiritual  and  heavenly  things  of  the 
New,  it  was  also,  in  so  far  as  it  realized  and  felt  the  truth 
of  God  presented  to  it,  the  living  root  out  of  which  the  New 
ultimately  sprang.  The  rude  beginnings  were  there  of  all 
that  exists  in  comparative  perfection  now. 

III.  Another  advantage  resulting  from  a  correct  knowl- 
edge and  appreciation  of  the  Typology  of  ancient  Scripture, 
is  the  increased  value  and  importance  with  which  it  invests  the 
earlier  portions  of  revelation.  This  has  respect  more  especially 
to  the  historical  parts  of  Old  Testament  Scripture ;  yet  not  to 
these  exclusively.  For  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  will 
be  found  to  rise  in  our  esteem,  in  proportion  as  we  under- 
stand and  enter  into  its  typological  bearing.  But  the  point 
may  be  more  easily  and  distinctly  illustrated  by  a  reference 
to  its  records  of  history. 

Many  ends,  undoubtedly,  had  to  be  served  by  these ;  and 
we  must  beware  of  making  so  much  account  of  one,  as  if  it 
were  the  whole.  Even  the  least  interesting  and  instructive 
parts  of  the  historical  records,  the  genealogies,  are  not  with- 
out their  use ;  for  they  supply  some  valuable  materials  both 
for  the  general  knowledge  of  antiquity,  and  for  our  acquaint- 
ance, in  particular,  with  that  chosen  line  of  Adam's  posterity 
which  was  to  have  its  culmination  in  Christ.  But  the  narra- 
tives in  which  these  genealogies  are  imbedded,  which  record 
the  lives  of  so  many  individuals,  portray  the  manners  and 
customs  of  such  different  ages  and  nations,  and  relate  the 
dealings  of  God's  providence  and  the  communications  of  His 
mind  with  so  many  of  the  earliest  characters  and  tribes  in 

1  See  last  Section  of  this  Volume. 
VOL.  I. — 11 


178  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCKDPTUBE. 

the  world's  history, — these,  in  themselves,  and  apart  alto- 
gether from  any  prospective  reference  they  may  have  to  Gos- 
pel times,  are  on  many  accounts  interesting  and  instructive. 
Nor  can  they  be  attentively  perused  as  simple  records  of  the 
past,  without  being  found  "profitable  for  doctrine,  for  re- 
proof, for  correction,  and  for  instruction  in  righteousness." 

Yet  when  viewed  only  in  that  light,  one  half  their  worth 
is  still  not  understood;  nor  shall  we  be  able  altogether  to 
avoid  some  feeling  of  strangeness  occasionally  at  the  kind  of 
notices  embraced  in  the  inspired  narrative.  For  whatever 
interest  and  instruction  may  be  connected  with  it,  how  tri- 
fling often  are  the  incidents  it.  records !  how  limited  the  range 
to  which  it  chiefly  draws  our  attention !  and  how  easv  might 
it  seem,  at  various  points,  to  have  selected  other  histories, 
which  would  have  led  the  mind  through  scenes  more  obvious- 
ly important  in  themselves,  and  less  closely,  perhaps,  inter- 
woven with  evil!  Unbelievers  have  often  given  to  such 
thoughts  as  these  an  obnoxious  form,  and  have  endeavored 
by  means  of  them  to  bring  sacred  Scripture  into  discredit 
But  in  doing  so,  they  have  only  displayed  their  own  one- 
sidedness  and  partiality :  they  have  looked  at  this  portion  of 
the  word  of  God  in  a  contracted  light,  and  away  from  its 
proper  connection  with  the  entire  plan  of  revelation.  Let 
the  notices  of  Old  Testament  history  be  viewed  in  their  sub- 
servience to  the  scheme  of  grace  unfolded  in  the  Gospel — let 
the  field  which  it  traverses,  however  limited  in  extent,  and 
the  transactions  it  describes,  however  unimportant  in  a  polit- 
ical respect,  be  regarded  as  that  field,  and  those  transactions, 
through  which,  as  on  a  lower  and  common  stage,  the  Lord 
sought  to  familiarize  the  minds  of  His  people  with  the  truths 
and  principles  which  were  ultimately  to  appear  in  the  high- 
est affairs  of  His  kingdom — let  the  notices  of  Old  Testament 
history  be  viewed  in  this  light,  which  is  the  one  that  Script- 
ure itself  brings  prominently  forward,  and  then  what  dignity 
and  importance  is  seen  to  attach  to  every  one  of  them !  The 
smallest  movements  on  the  earth's  surface  acquire  a  certain 
greatness  when  connected  with  the  law  of  gravitation ;  since 
then  even  the  fall  of  an  apple  from  the  tree  stands  related  to 
the  revolution  of  the  planets  in  their  courses.  And,  in  like 
manner,  the  relation  which  the  historical  facts  of  ancient 
Scripture  bear  to  the  glorious  work  and  kingdom  of  Christ, 
gives  to  the  least  of  them  such  a  character  of  importance,  that 
they  are  brought  within  the  circle  of  God's  highest  purposes, 
and  are  perceived  to  be  in  reality  "the  connecting  links  of 
that  goloTen  chain  which  unites  heaven  and  earth." 

This,  however,  is  not  all.     While  a  proper  understanding 


ITS  PEOPEB  PLACE  AND  IMPOETANCE.  179 

of  the  Typology  of  Scripture  imparts  an  air  of  grandeur  and 
importance  to  its  smallest  incidents,  and  makes  the  little  rel- 
atively great,  it  does  more.  It  warrants  us  to  proceed  a  step 
further,  and  to  assert  that  such  personal  narratives  and  com- 
paratively little  incidents  as  fill  up  a  large  portion  of  the 
nistory,  not  only  might  without  impropriety  nave  been  ad- 
mitted into  the  sacred  record,  but  that  they  must  to  some 
extent  have  been  found  there,  in  order  to  adapt  it  properly  to 
the  end  which  it  was  intended  to  serve.  It  was  precisely  the 
limited  and  homely  character  of  many  of  the  things  related 
which  rendered  them  such  natural  and  easy  stepping-stones 
to  the  discoveries  of  a  higher  dispensation.  It  is  one  thing 
that  an  arrangement  exists  in  nature,  which  comprehends 
under  the  same  law  the  falling  of  an  apple  to  the  ground, 
and  the  vast  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies;  but  it  is 
another  thing,  and  also  true,  that  the  perception  of  that  law, 
as  manifested  in  the  motion  of  the  small  and  terrestrial  body 
— because  manifested  there  on  a  scale  which  man  could  bring 
fully  within  the  grasp  of  his  comprehension — was  what  ena- 
bled him  to  mount  upwards  and  scan  the  similar,  though 
incomparably  grander,  phenomena  of  the  distant  universe. 
In  this  case,  there  was  not  only  a  connection  in  nature 
between  the  little  and  the  great,  but  also  such  a  connection 
in  the  order  of  man's  acquaintance  with  both,  that  it  was  the 
knowledge  of  the  one  which  conducted  him  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  other.  The  connection  is  much  the  same  that 
exists  between  the  facts  of  Old  Testament  history  and  the 
all-important  revelations  of 'the  Gospel — with  this  difference, 
indeed,  that  the  laws  and  principles  developed  amid  the 
familiar  objects  and  comparatively  humble  scenes  of  the  one/, 
were  not  so  properly  designed  to  fit  man  for  discovering,  as 
for  receiving  when  discovered,  the  sublime  mysteries  of  the 
other.  But  to  do  this,  it  was  not  less  necessary  here  than  in 
the  case  above  referred  to,  that  the  earlier  developments 
should  have  been  made  in  connection  with  things  of  a  dimin- 
utive nature,  such  as  the  occurrences  of  individual  history, 
or  the  transactions  of  a  limited  kingdom.  A  series  of  events 
considerably  more  grand  and  majestic  could  not  have  accom- 
plished the  object  in  view.  They  would  have  been  too  far 
removed  from  the  common  course  of  things,  and  would  have 
been  more  fitted  to  gratify  the  curiosity  and  dazzle  the  imag- 
ination of  those  who  witnessed  or  read  of  them,  than  to  indoc- 
trinate their  minds  with  the  fundamental  truths  and  principles 
of  God's  spiritual  economy.  This  result  could  be  best  pro- 
duced by  such  a  series  of  transactions  as  we  find  actually 
recorded  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament — transactions 


180  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

infinitely  varied,  yet  always  capable  of  being  quite  easily 
grasped  and  understood.  And  thus,  what  to  a  superficial 
consideration  appears  strange,  or  even  objectionable,  in  the 
structure  of  the  inspired  record,  becomes,  on  a  more  compre- 
hensive view,  an  evidence  of  wise  adaptation  to  the  wants 
of  our  nature,  and  of  supernatural  foresight  in  adjusting  one 
portion  of  the  divine  plan  to  another. 

It  will  be  readily  understood,  that  what  we  have  said  of 
the  purpose  of  God  with  reference  more  immediately  to  those 
who  lived  in  Old  Testament  times,  applies,  without  any  mate- 
rial difference,  to  such  as  are  placed  under  the  Christian  dis- 
pensation. For  what  the  transactions  required  to  be  for  the 
accomplishment  of  God's  purpose  in  regard  to  the  one,  the 
record  of  these  transactions  required  to  be  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  His  purpose  in  regard  to  the  other.  Whatever 
confirmation  such  things  may  lend  to  our  faith  in  the  myste- 
ries of  God — whatever  force  or  clearness  to  our  perceptions 
of  the  truth — whatever  encouragement  to  our  hopes  or  di- 
rection to  our  walk  in  the  life  of  holiness  and  virtue,  it  may 
all  be  said  to  depend  upon  the  history  being  composed  of 
facts  so  homely  in  their  character  and  so  circumscribed  in 
their  range,  that  the  mind  can  without  difficulty  both  realize 
their  existence  and  enter  into  their  spirit. 

IV.  Another  service — the  last  we  shall  notice — which  a 
truly  scriptural  Typology  is  fitted  to  render  to  the  cause  of 
divine  knowledge  and  practice,  is  the  aid  it  furnishes  to  help 
out  spiritual  ideas  in  our  minds,  and  enable  us  to  realize  them 
with  sufficient^  clearness  and  certainty.  This  follows  very  closely 
on  the  consideration  last  mentioned,  arid  may  be  regarded 
rather  as  a  further  application  of  the  truth  contained  in  it, 
than  the  advancement  of  something  altogether  new.  But 
we  wish  to  draw  attention  to  an  important  advantage,  not 
yet  distinctly  noticed,  connected  with  the  typical  element  in 
Old  Testament  Scripture,  and  on  which  to  a  considerable 
extent  the  people  of  God  are  still  dependent  for  the  strength 
and  liveliness  of  their  faith. 

It  is  true  they  have  now  the  privilege  of  a  full  revelation 
of  the  mind  of  God  respecting  the  truths  of  salvation ;  and 
this  elevates  their  condition,  as  to  spiritual  things,  far  above 
that  of  the  Old  Testament  believers.  But  it  does  not  thence 
follow  that  they  can  in  all  respects  so  distinctly  apprehend 
the  truth  in  its  naked  spirituality,  as  to  be  totally  indepen- 
dent of  some  outward  exhibition  of  it.  We  are  still  in  a 
state  of  imperfection,  and  are  so  much  creatures  of  sense, 
that  our  ideas  of  abstract  truth,  even  in  natural  science,  often 


ITS  PBOPEB  PLACE  AND  IMPOBTANOE.      181 

require  to  be  aided  by  visible  forms  and  representations.  But 
things  strictly  spiritual  and  divine  are  yet  more  difficult  to 
be  brought  distinctly  within  the  reach  and  comprehension 
of  the  mind. — It  was  a  relative  advantage  possessed  by  the 
Old  Testament  worshipper,  in  connection  with  his  worldly 
sanctuary,  and  the  more  fleshly  dispensation  under  which  he 
lived,  that  spiritual  and  divine  things,  so  far  as  they  were 
revealed  to  him,  acquired  a  sort  of  local  habitation  to  his 
view,  and  assumed  the  appearance  of  a  lifelike  freshness  and 
reality.  Hence  chiefly  arose  that  "  impression  of  passionate 
individual  attachment,"  as  it  has  been  called,  which,  in  the 
authors  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  appears  mingling 
with  and  vivifying  their  faith  in  the  invisible,  and  which 
breathes  in  them  Tike  a  breath  of  supernatural  life.  What 
Hengstenberg  has  said  in  this  respect  of  the  Book  of  Psalms, 
may  be  extended  to  Old  Testament  Scripture  generally :  "  It 
has  contributed  vast  materials  for  developing  the  conscious- 
ness of  mankind,  and  the  Christian  Church  is  more  dependent 
on  it  for  its  apprehensions  of  God  than  might  at  first  sight 
be  supposed.  It  presents  God  so  clearly  and  vividly  before 
men's  eyes,  that  they  see  Him,  in  a  manner,  with  their  bodily 
sight,  and  thus  find  the  sting  taken  out  of  their  pains.  In 
this,  too,  lies  one  great  element  of  its  importance  for  the 
present  times.  What  men  now  most  of  all  need,  is  to  have 
the  blanched  image  of  God  again  freshened  up  in  them. 
And  the  more  closely  we  connect  ourselves  with  these  sacred 
writings,  the  more  will  God  cease  to  be  to  us  a  shadowy 
form,  which  can  neither  hear,  nor  help,  nor  judge  us,  and  to 
which  we  can  present  no  supplication. ' 1 

Besides,  there  are  portions  of  revealed  truth  which  relate 
to  events  still  future,  and  do  not  at  all  come  within  the  range 
of  our  present  observation  and  experience,  though  very  im- 
portant as  objects  of  faith  and  hope  to  the  Church.  It  might 
materially  facilitate  our  conception  of  these,  and  strengthen 
our  belief  in  the  certainty  of  their  coming  existence,  if  we 
could  look  back  to  some  corresponding  exemplar  of  things, 
either  in  the  symbolical  handwriting  of  ordinances,  or  in  the 
typical  transactions  of  an  earthly  and  temporal  kingdom. 
But  this  also  has  been  prepared  to  our  hand  by  God  in  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament.  And  to  show  how  much 
may  be  derived  from  a  right  acquaintance,  both  in  this  arid  in 
the  other  respect  mentioned,  with  the  typical  matter  of  these 
Scriptures,  we  shall  give  here  a  twofold  illustration  of  the 
subject — the  one  referring  to  truths  affecting  the  present 

»n  7'xa/ws,  §  vii. 


182  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUBE. 

state  and  condition  of  believers,  and  the  other  to  such  as 
respect  the  still  distant  future. 

1.  For  our  first  illustration  we  shall  select  a  topic  that  will 
enable  us,  at  the  same  time,  to  explain  a  commonly  misunder- 
stood passage  of  Scripture.  The  passage  is  1  Pet.  i.  2,  where, 
speaking  of  the  elevated  condition  of  believers,  the  apostle 
olescribes  them  as  "  elect  according  to  the  foreknowledge  of 
God  the  Father,  through  sanctification  of  the  Spirit,  unto  obe- 
dience and  sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ."  The 
peculiar  part  of  the  description  is  the  last — "  sprinkling  with 
the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ " — which,  being  represented  along 
with  obedience  as  the  end  to  which  believers  are  both  elected ' 
of  the  Father  and  sanctified  of  the  Spirit,  seems  at  first  sight 
to  be  out  of  its  proper  place.  The  application  of  the  blood 
of  Christ  is  usually  thought  of  in  reference  to  the  pardon  of 
sin,  or  its  efficacy  in  the  matter  of  the  soul's  justification  be- 
fore God;  when,  of  course,  its  place  stands  between  the  elec- 
tion of  the  Father  and  the  sanctification  of  the  Spirit.  Nor, 
in  that  most  common  reference  to  the  effect  of  Christ's  blood, 
is  it  of  small  advantage  for  the  attainment  of  a  clear  and 
realizing  faith,  that  we  have  in  many  of  the  Levitical  ser- 
vices, and  especially  in  those  of  the  great  day  of  yearl> 
atonement,  an  outward  form  and  pattern  of  things  by  whici 
more  distinctly  to  picture  out  the  sublime  spiritual  reality. 

It  is  plain,  however,  that  the  sprinkling  of  Christ's  blood 
mentioned  by  St.  Peter,  is  not  that  which  has  for  its  effect 
the  sinner's  pardon  and  acceptance  (although  Leighton  and 
most  commentators  have  so  understood  it) ;  for  it  is  not  only 
coupled  with  a  personal  obedience,  as  being  somewhat  of 
the  same  nature,  but  the  two  together  are  set  forth  as  the 
result  of  the  electing  and  sanctifying  grace  of  God  urjon  the 
soul.  The  good  here  intended  must  be  something  inward 
and  personal;  something  not  wrought  for  us,  but  wrought 
upon  us  and  in  us ;  implying  our  justification,  as  a  gift  already 
received,  but  itself  belonging  to  a  higher  and  more  advanced 
stage  of  our  experience — to  the  very  top  and  climax  of  our 
sanctification.  What,  then,  is  it?  Nothing  new,  certainly, 
or  of  rare  occurrence  in  the  word  of  God,  but  one  often  de- 
scribed in  the  most  explicit  terms ;  while  yet  the  idea  involved 
in  it  is  so  spiritual  and  elevated,  that  we  greatly  need  the 
aid  of  the  Old  Testament  types  to  give  strength  and  vividness 
to  our  conceptions  of  it.  The  mood  of  tne  sacrifices,  by 
which  the  covenant  was  ratified  at  the  altar  in  the  wilderness, 
was  divided  into  two  parts,  with  one  of  which  Moses  sprin- 
kled the  altar,  and  with  the  other  the  people.1  A  similar 

i  1  Ex.  xxiv.  6-8. 


ITS  PROPER  PLACE  AND  IMPORTANCE.     183 

division  and  application  of  the  blood  was  made  at  the  con- 
secration of  Aaron  to  the  priesthood;1  and  though  it  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  formally,  it  was  yet  virtually,  done  on 
the  day  of  the  yearly  atonement,  since  all  the  sprinklings  on 
that  day  were  made  by  the  high  priest,  for  the  cleansing 
of  defilements  belonging  to  himself,  his  household,  and  the 
whole  congregation.  "Now"  (says  Steiger  on  1  Pet.  i.  2),  "if 
we  represent  to  ourselves  the  whole  work  of  redemption,  in 
allusion  to  this  rite,  it  will  be  as  follows: — The  expiation  of 
one  and  of  all  sin,  the  propitiation,  was  accomplished  when 
Christ  offered  His  blood  to  God  on  the  altar  of  the  accursed 
tree.  That  done,  He  went  with  His  blood  into  the  most 
Holy  Place.  Whosoever  looks  in  faith  to  His  blood,  has  part 
in  the  atonement  (Eom.  iii.  25);  that  is,  he  is  justified  on 
account  of  it,  receiving  the  full  pardon  of  all  his  sins  (Rom, 
v.  9).  Thenceforth  he  can  appear  with  the  whole  community 
of  believers  (1  John  i.  7),  mil  of  boldness  and  confidence 
before  the  throne  of  grace  (Heb.  iv.  16),  in  order  that  he  may 
be  purified  by  Christ,  as  high  priest,  from  every  evil  lust." 
It  is  this  personal  purifying  from  every  evil  lust  which  the 
apostle  describes  in  ritual  language  as  "the  sprinkling  of 
the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ,"  and  which  is  also  described  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  with  a  similar  reference  to  the  blood 
of  Christ,  by  having  "  the  heart  sprinkled  from  an  evil  con- 
science," and  again  "  by  having  the  conscience  purged  from 
dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God."  The  sprinkling  or 
purging  spoken  of  in  these  several  passages,  is  manifestly  the 
cleansing  of  the  soul  from  all  internal  defilement,  so  as  to 
dispose  and  fit  it  for  whatever  is  pure  and  good.,  and  the 
purifying  effect  is  produced  by  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  of 
Jesus,  or  its  spiritual  application  to  the  conscience  of  be- 
lievers, because  the  blessed  result  is  attained  through  the 
holv  and  divine  life,  represented  by  that  blood,  becoming 
truly  and  personally  theirs. 

Now,  this  great  truth  is  certainly  taught  with  the  utmost 
plainness  in  many  passages  of  Scripture, — as  when  it  is  writ- 
ten of  believers,  that  "  their  hearts  are  purified  by  faith  " ;  that 
they  "  purify  themselves,  even  as  Christ  is  pure  " ;  or  when  it 
is  said  that  "  Christ  lives  in  them,"  that  "  their  life  is  hid  with 
Him  in  God,"  that  "they  are  in  Him  that  is  true,  arid  can  not 
sin,  because  their  seed  (the  seed  of  that  new,  spiritual  nature, 
to  which  they  have  been  quickened  by  fellowship  with  the 
life  of  Jesus)  remains  in  them " ;  and,  in  short,  in  every  pas- 
sage which  connects  with  the  pure  and  spotless  life-blooa  of 
Jesus  an  impartation  of  life-giving  grace  and  holiness  to  Hia 

1  Ex.  xxix.  20,  21. 


xM  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOKIPTUBE. 

people.  I  can  understand  the  truth,  even  when  thus  spirit- 
ually, and,  if  I  may  so  say,  nakedly  expressed.  But  I  feel 
that  I  can  obtain  a  more  clear  and  comforting  impression  of 
it,  when  I  keep  my  eye  upon  the  simple  and  striking  exhibi- 
tion given  of  it  in  the  visible  type.  For,  with  what  effect 
was  the  blood  of  atonement  sprinkled  upon  the  true  worship- ' 
pers  of  the  old  covenant  ?  With  the  effect  of  making  what- ' 
ever  sacredness,  whatever  virtue  (symbolically)  was  in  that 
blood,  pass  over  upon  them :  the  life,  which  in  it  had  flowed 
out  in  noly  offering  to  God,  was  given  to  be  theirs,  and  to  be 
by  them  laid  out  in  all  pure  and  faithful  ministrations  of  " 
righteousness.  Such  precisely  is  the  effect  of  Christ's  blood 
sprinkled  on  the  soul ;  it  is  to  have  His  life  made  our  life,  or 
to  become  one  with  Him  in  the  stainless  purity  and  perfec- 
tion which  expressed  itself  in  His  sacrifice  of  sweet-smelling 
savor  to  the  Father.  What  a  sublime  and  elevating  thought ! 
It  is  much,  assuredly,  for  me  to  know,  that,  by  faith  in  His 
blood,  the  crimson  guilt  of  my  sins  is  blotted  out,  Heaven 
itself  reconciled,  and  the  way  into  the  holiest  of  all  laid  freely 
open  for  my  approach.  But  it  is  much  more  still  to  know, 
that  by  faith  in  the  same  blood,  realized  and  experienced 
through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  I  am  made  a  partaker 
of  its  sanctifying  virtue ;  the  very  holiness  of  the  Holy  One 
of  Israel  passes  into  me ;  His  life-blood  becomes  in  my  soul 
the  well-spring  of  a  new  and  deathless  existence.  So  that  to 
be  sealed  up  to  this  fountain  of  life,  is  to  be  raised  above  the 
defilement  of  nature,  to  dwell  in  the  light  of  God,  and  sit  as 
in  heavenly  places  with  Christ  Jesus.  And,  amid  the  imper- 
fections of  our  personal  experience,  and  the  clouds  ever  and 
anon  raised  in  the  soul  by  remaining  sin,  it  should  unques- 
tionably be  to  us  a  matter  of  unfeigned  thankfulness,  that  we 
can  repair  to  such  a  lively  image  of  the  truth  as  is  presented 
in  the  Old  Testament  service,  in  which,  as  in  a  mirror,  we 
can  see  how  high  in  this  respect  is  the  hope  of  our  calling, 
and  how  much  it  is  God's  purpose  we  should  enter  into  the 
blessing. 

2.  There  are  revelations  in  the  Gospel,  however,  which 
point  to  events  still  future  in  the  Messiah's  kingdom;  and  in 
respect  to  these,  also,  the  typical  arrangements  of  former 
times  are  capable  of  rendering  important  service :  a  service, 
too,  which  is  the  more  needed,  as  the  things  indicated  in 
regard  to  these  future  developments  of  the  kingdom  are  not 
only  remote  from  present  observation,  but  also  in  manv  re- 
spects different  from  what  the  ordinary  course  of  events  might 
lead  us  to  expect.  We  do  not  refer  to  the  last  issues  of  the 
Gospel  dispensation,  when  the  concerns  of  time  shall  n*-?. 


185 

become  finally  merged  in  the  unalterable  results  of  eternity ; 
but  to  events,  of  which  this  earth  itself  is  still  to  be  the  the- 
atre, in  the  closing  periods  of  Messiah's  reign.  This  prospec- 
tive ground  is  in  many  points  overlaid  with  controversy,  and 
much  concerning  it  must  be  regarded  as  matter  of  doubtful 
disputation.  Yet  there  are  certain  great  landmarks  which 
intelligent  and  sober-minded  Christians  can  scarcely  fail  to 
consider  as  fixed.  It  is  not,  for  example,  a  more  certain  mark 
of  the  Messiah  who  was  to  come,  that  He  should  be  a  despised 
and  rejected  man,  should  pass  through  the  deepest  humilia- 
tion, and,  after  a  mighty  struggle  with  evil,  attain  to  the  seat 
of  empire,  than  it  is  of  the  Messiah  who  has  thus  personally 
fought  and  conquered,  that  He  shall  totally  subdue  all  the 
adversaries  of  His  Church  and  kingdom,  make  His  Church 
co-extensive  with  the  boundaries  of  the  habitable  globe,  and 
exalt  her  members  to  the  highest  position  of*  honor  and  bless- 
ing. For  my  own  part,  I  should  as  soon  doubt  that  the  first 
series  of  events  were  the  just  object  of  expectation  before,  as 
the  other  have  become  since,  the  personal  appearing  of  Christ; 
and  for  breadth  and  prominence  of  place  in  the  prophetical 
portions,  especially  of  New  Testament  Scripture,  this  has  all 
that  could  be  desired  in  its  behalf.  But  how  far  still  is  the 
object  from  being  realized?  How  unlikely,  even,  that  it 
should  ever  be  so,  if  we  had  nothing  more  to  found  upon 
than  calculations  of  reason,  and  the  common  agencies  of 
providence ! 

That  the  progress  of  society  in  knowledge  and  virtue 
should  gradually  lead,  at  however  distant  a  period,  to  the 
extirpation  of  idolatry,  the  abolition  of  the  grosser  forms  of 
superstition,  and  a  general  refinement  and  civilization  of 
manners,  requires  no  great  stretch  of  faith  to  believe.  Such 
a  result  evidently  lies  within  the  bounds  of  natural  probabil- 
ity, if  only  sufficient  time  were  given  to  accomplish  it.  But, 
suppose  it  already  done,  how  much  would  still  remain  to  be 
achieved  ere  the  glorious  King  of  Zion  should  have  His  prom- 
ised ascendency  in  the  affairs  of  men,  and  the  spiritual  ends 
for  which  he  especially  reigns  should  be  adequately  secured ! 
This  happy  consummation  might  still  be  found  at  an  unap- 
proachable distance,  even  when  the  other  had  passed  into  a 
reality;  nor  are  there  wanting  signs  in  the  present  condition 
of  the  world  to  awaken  our  rears  lest  such  may  actually  be 
the  case.  For  in  those  countries  where  the  light  of  divine 
truth  and  the  arts  of  civilization  have  become  more  widely 
diffused,  we  see  many  things  prevailing  that  are  utterly  at 
variance  with  the  purity  and  peace  of  the  Gospel — number- 
less heresies  in  doctrine,  disorders  that  seem  to  admit  of  nc 


186  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCULPTURE. 

healing,  and  practical  corruptions  which  set  at  defiance  all 
authority  and  rule.  In  the  very  presence  of  the  light  of 
heaven,  and  amid  the  full  play  of  Christian  influences,  the 
god  of  this  world  still  holds  possession  of  by  far  the  larger 
portion  of  mankind ;  and  innumerable  obstacles  present  them- 
selves on  every  side  against  the  universal  diffusion  and  the 
complete  ascendency  of  the  pure  principles  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.  When  such  things  are  taken  into  account,  how  hope- 
less seems  the  prospect  of  a  triumphant  Church  and  a  regen- 
erated world !  of  a  Saviour  holding  the  undivided  empire  of 
all  lands !  of  a  kingdom  in  which  there  is  no  longer  any  thing 
to  offend,  and  all  appears  replenished  with  life  and  blessing ! 
The  partial  triumphs  which  Christianity  is  still  gaining  in 
single  individuals  and  particular  districts,  can  go  but  a  little 
way  to  assure  us  of  so  magnificent  a  result.  And  it  may  well 
seem  as  if  other  influences  than  such  as  are  now  in  operation, 
would  require  to  be  put  forth  before  the  expected  good  can 
reach  its  accomplishment. 

Something,  no  doubt,  may  be  done  to  reassure  the  mind, 
by  looking  back  on  the  past  history  of  Christianity,  and  con- 
trasting its  present  condition  with  the  point  from  which  it 
started.  The  small  mustard-seed  has  certainly  sprung  into 
a  lofty  tree,  stretching  its  luxuriant  branches  over  many  of 
the  best  regions  of  the  earth.  See  Christianity  as  it  appeared 
in  its  divine  Author,  when  He  wandered  about  as  a  lowly 
and  despised  teacher,  attended  only  by  a  little  band  of  fol- 
lowers as  lowly  and  despised  as  Himself;  or  again,  when  He 
was  hanging  on  a  malefactor's  cross,  His  very  friends  ashamed 
or  terrified  to  avow  their  connection  with  Him;  or  even  at 
another  and  more  advanced  stage  of  its  earthly  history,  when 
its  still  small,  and  now  resolute,  company  of  adherents,  un- 
furled the  banner  of  salvation,  with  the  fearful  odds  every- 
where against  them  of  hostile  kings  and  rulers,  an  ignorant 
and  debased  populace,  a  powerful  and  interested  priesthood, 
and  a  mighty  host  of  superstitions,  which  had  struck  their  roots 
through  the  entire  framework  of  society,  and  had  become 
venerable,  as  well  as  strong,  by  their  antiquity.  See  Chris- 
tianity as  it  appeared  then,  and  see  it  now  standing  erect 
upon  the  ruins  of  the  hierarchies  and  superstitions  which  once 
threatened  to  extinguish  it — planted  with  honor  in  the  re- 
gions where,  for  a  time,  it  was  scarcely  suffered  to  exist — the 
recognized  religion  of  the  most  enlightened  nations  of  the 
earth,  the  delight  and  solace  of  the  good,  the  study  of  the 
wise  and  learned,  at  once  the  source  and  the  bulwark  of  all 
that  is  most  pure,  generous,  free,  and  happy  in  modern  civil- 
ization Comparing  thus  the  present  witn  the  past — looking 


ITS  PEOPEE  PLACE  AND  IMPOETANCE.     187 

down  from  the  altitude  that  has  been  reached  upon  the  low 
and  unpromising  condition  out  of  which  Christianity  at  first 
arose,  we  are  not  without  considerable  materials  in  the  history 
of  the  Gospel  itself,  for  confirming  our  faith  in  the  prospects 
which  still  wait  for  their  fulfilment.  On  this  ground  alone 
it  may  scarcely  seem  more  unlikely  that  Christianity  should 
proceed  from  the  elevation  it  has  already  won  to  the  greatly 
more  commanding  altitude  it  is  yet  destined  to  attain,  than 
to  have  arisen  from  such  small  beginnings,  and  in  the  face 
of  obstacles  so  many  and  so  powerful,  to  its  present  influential 
and  honorable  position. 

But  why  not  revert  to  a  still  earlier  period  in  the  Church's 
history?  Why  withhold  from  our  wavering  hearts  the  bene- 
fit which  they  might  derive  from  the  form  and  pattern  of 
divine  things,  formerly  exhibited  in  the  parallel  affairs  of  a 
typical  and  earthly  kingdom?  It  was  the  divine  appoint- 
ment concerning  Christ,  that  He  should  sit  upon  the  throne 
of  David,  to  order  and  to  establish  it  In  the  higher  sphere 
of  God's  administration,  and  for  the  world  at  large,  He  was 
to  do  what  had  been  done  through  David  in  the  lower  and 
on  the  limited  territory  of  an  earthly  kingdom.  The  history 
of  the  one,  therefore,  may  justly  be  regarded  as  the  shadow 
of  the  other.  But  it  is  still  only  the  earlier  part  of  the  his- 
tory of  David's  kingdom  which  has  found  its  counterpart  in 
the  events  of  Gospel  times.  The  Shepherd  of  Israel  has  been 
anointed  King  over  the  heritage  of  tne  Lord,  and  the  impious 
efforts  of  His  adversaries  to  disannul  the  appointment  nave 
entirely  miscarried.  The  formidable  train  of  evils  which  ob- 
structed His  way  to  the  throne  of  government,  and  which 
were  directed  with  the  profoundest  cunning  and  malice  by 
him  who,  on  account  of  sin,  had  been  permitted  to  become 
the  prince  of  this  world,  have  been  all  met  and  overcome — 
with  no  other  effect  than  to  render  manifest  the  Son's  indefea- 
sible right  to  hold  the  sceptre  of  universal  empire  over  the  af- 
fairs of  men.  Now,  therefore,  He  reigns  in  the  midst  of  His  en- 
emies ;  but  He  must  also  reign  till  these  enemies  themselves  are 
put  down — till  the  inheritance  has  been  redeemed  from  all  evil, 
and  universal  peace,  order,  and  blessing  have  been  established. 

Is  not  this  also  what  the  subsequent  histoiy  of  the  earthly 
kingdom  fully  warrants  us  to  expect?  It  was  long  after 
David's  appointment  to  the  throne,  before  his  divine  right  to 
reign  was  generally  acknowledged;  and  still  longer  before 
the  overthrow  of  the  last  combination  of  adversaries,  and  the 
termination  of  the  last  train  of  evils,  admitted  of  the  king- 
dom entering  on  its  ultimate  stage  of  settled  peace  and  glory. 
The  affairs  of  David  himself  never  wore  a  more  discouraging 


188  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRtPTUEK 

and  desperate  aspect,  than  immediately  before  his  great  ad- 
versary received  the  mortal  blow  which  laid  him  in  the  dust. 
After  this,  years  had  to  elapse  before  the  adverse  parties  in 
Israel  were  even  externally  subdued,  and  brought  to  render 
a  formal  acknowledgment  to  the  Lord's  anointed.  When 
this  point,  again,  had  been  reached,  what  internal  evils  fes- 
tered in  the  kingdom,  and  what  smouldering  fires  of  enmity 
still  burned  !  Notwithstanding  the  vigorous  efforts  made  to 
subdue  these,  we  see  them  at  last  bursting  forth  in  the  dread- 
ful and  unnatural  outbreak  of  Absalom's  rebellion,  which 
threatened  for  a  time  to  involve  all  in  hopeless  ruin  and  con- 
fusion. And  with  these  internal  evils  and  insurrections,  how 
many  hostile  encounters  had  to  be  met  from  without !  some 
of  which  were  so  terrible,  that  the  very  earth  was  felt,  in  a 
manner,  to  shake  under  the  stroke  (Ps.  lx.).  Yet  all  at  length 
yielded ;  and  partly  by  the  prowess  of  faith,  partly  by  the  re- 
markable turns  given  to  events  in  providence,  the  kingdom 
did  reach  a  position  of  unexampled  prosperity,  peace,  and 
blessing.  But  in  all  this  we  have  the  development  of  a 
typical  dispensation  bringing  the  assurance  that  the  same 
position  shall  in  due  time  be  reached  in  the  higher  sphere 
and  nobler  concerns  of  Messiah's  kingdom.  The  same  deter- 
minate counsel  and  foreknowledge,  the  same  living  energy, 
the  same  overruling  Providence,  is  equally  competent  now, 
as  it  is  alike  pledged,  to  secure  a  corresponding  result.  And 
if  the  people  of  God  have  but  discernment  to  read  aright  the 
history  of  the  past,  and  faith  and  patience  to  fulfil  their  ap- 
pointed task,  they  will  find  that  they  have  no  need  to  despair 
of  a  successful  issue,  but  every  reason  to  hope  that  judgment 
shall  at  length  be  brought  forth  into  victory. 

This  one  illustration  may  meanwhile  be  sufficient  to  show 
(others  will  afterwards  present  themselves)  how  valuable  a 
handmaid  to  the  unfulfilled  prophecies  of  Scripture  may  bo 
found  in  a  correct  acquaintance  with  its  Typology.  Its  pro- 
vince does  not  indeed  consist  in  definitely  marking  out  be- 
forehand the  particular  agents  and  transactions  that  are  to 
fill  up  the  page  of  the  eventful  future.  It  performs  the  ser- 
vice which  in  this  respect  it  is  fitted  to  accomplish,  when  it 
enables  us  to  obtain  some  insight — not  into  the  ivhat,  or  the 
when,  or  the  instruments  by  which — but  rather  into  the  how  and 
the  ivherefore  of  the  future, — when  it  instructs  us  respecting 
the  nature  of  the  principles  that  must  prevail,  and  the  gen- 
eral lines  of  dealing  that  shall  be  adopted,  in  conducting  the 
affairs  of  Messiah's  kingdom  to  their  destined  results.  The 
future  here  is  mirrored  in  the  past;  and  the  thing  that  hath 
been,  is,  in  all  its  essential  features,  the  same  that  shall  be. 


BOOK  SECOND. 

THE    DISPENSATION   OF   PRIMEVAL   AND   PATRIARCHAL    TIMES. 


PRELIMINARY     REMARKS. 


HITHERTO  we  have  been  occupied  chiefly  with  an  investi- 
gation of  principles.  It  was  necessary,  in  the  first  instance, 
to  have  these  ascertained  and  settled,  before  we  could  apply, 
with  any  prospect  of  success,  to  the  particular  consideration 
of  the  typical  materials  of  Old  Testament  Scripture.  And  in 
now  entering  on  this,  the  more  practical,  as  it  is  also  the 
more  varied  and  extensive,  branch  of  our  subject,  it  is  proper 
to  indicate  at  the  outset  the  general  features  of  the  arrange- 
ment we  propose  to  adopt,  and  notice  certain  landmarks  of  a 
more  prominent  kind  that  ought  to  guide  the  course  of  our 
inquines. 

1.  As  all  that  was  really  typical  formed  part  of  an  exist- 
ing dispensation,  and  stood  related  to  a  religious  worship,  our 

§nmary  divisions  must  connect  themselves  with  the  divine 
ispensations.  These  dispensations  were  undoubtedly  based 
on  the  same  fundamental  truths  and  principles.  But  they 
were  also  marked  by  certain  characteristic  differences,  adapt- 
ing them  to  the  precise  circumstances  of  the  Church  and  the 
world  at  the  time  of  their  introduction.  It  is  from  these, 
therefore,  we  must  take  our  starting-points;  and  in  these 
also  should  find  the  natural  order  and  succession  of  the 
topics  which  must  pass  under  our  consideration.  In  doing 
so  we  shall  naturally  look,  first,  to  the  fundamental  facts  on 
which  the  dispensation  is  based ;  then  to  the  religious  sym- 
bols in  which  its  lessons  and  hopes  were  embodied;  and 
finally,  to  the  future  and  subsidiary  transactions  which  after- 
wards carried  forward  and  matured  the  instruction. 

2.  In  the  whole  compass  of  sacred  history  we  find  only 
three  grand  eras  that  can  properly  be  regarded  as  the  forma- 
tive epochs  of  distinct  religious  dispensations.     For,  accord 


190  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUEE. 

ing  to  the  principles  already  set  forth  (in  ch.  iv.),  the  things 
directly  belonging  to  creation,  however  they  may  have  to  be 
taken  into  account  as  presupposed  and  referred  to  in  what 
followed,  still  do  not  here  come  into  consideration  as  a  dis- 
tinct class,  and  calling  for  independent  treatment.  The  three 
eras,  then,  are  those  of  the  fall,  of  the  redemption  from  Egypt, 
and  of  the  appearance  and  work  of  Christ,  as  they  are  usu- 
ally designated;  though  they  might  be  more  fitly  described, 
the  first  as  the  entrance  of  faith  and  hope  for  fallen  man,  the 
second  as  the  giving  of  the  law,  and  the  third  as  the  revela- 
tion of  the  Gospel.  For  it  was  not  properly  the  fall,  but  tho 
new  state  and  constitution  of  things  brought  in  after  it,  that, 
in  a  religious  point  of  view,  forms  the  first  commencement  of 
the  world's  history.  Neither  is  it  the  redemption  from  Egypt, 
considered  by  itself,  but  this  in  connection  with  the  giving  of 
the  law,  which  was  its  immediate  aim  and  object,  that  forms 
the  great  characteristic  of  the  second  stage,  as  the  coming  of 
grace  and  truth  by  Jesus  Christ  does  of  the  third.  Between 
the  first  and  second  of  these  eras  two  very  important  events 
intervened — the  deluge,  and  the  call  of  Abraham — both  alike 
forming  prominent  breaks  in  the  history  of  the  period.  Hence, 
not  unfrequently,  the  antediluvian  is  distinguished  from  the 
patriarchal  Church,  and  the  Church  as  it  existed  before,  from 
the  Church  as  it  stood  after,  the  call  of  Abraham.  But  impor- 
tant as  these  events  were,  in  the  order  of  God's  providential 
arrangements,  they  mark  no  material  alteration  in  the  con- 
stitutional basis,  or  even  formal  aspect,  of  the  religion  then 
established.  As  regards  the  institutions  of  worship,  properly 
so  called,  Abraham  and  his  descendants  appear  to  have  been 
much  on  a  footing  with  those  who  lived  before  the  flood ;  and 
therefore  not  primary  and  fundamental,  but  only  subsidiary, 
elements  of  instruction  could  be  evolved  by  means  of  the 
events  referred  to.  The  same  may  also  be  said  of  another 
great  event,  which  formed  a  similar  break  during  the  cur- 
rency of  the  second  period — the  Babylonish  exile  and  return. 
This  occupies  a  very  prominent  place  in  Scripture,  whether  we 
look  to  the  historical  record  of  the  event,  or  to  the  announce- 
ments made  beforehand  concerning  it  in  prophecy.  Yet  it 
introduced  no  essential  change  into  the  spiritual  relations  of 
the  Church,  nor  altered  in  any  respect  the  institutions  of  her 
symbolical  worship.  The  restored  temple  was  built  at  once 
on  the  site  and  after  the  pattern  of  that  which  had  been  laid 
in  ruins  by  the  Chaldseans;  and  nothing  more  was  aimed  at 
by  the  immediate  agents  in  the  work  of  restoration,  than  the 
re-establishment  of  the  rites  and  services  enjoined  by  Moses. 
Omitting,  therefore,  the  Gospel  dispensation,  as  the  antitypi- 


PBELIMINABY  EEMARKS.  191 

cal,  there  only  remain  for  the  commencement  of  the  earlier 
dispensations,  in  which  the  typical  is  to  be  sought,  the  two 
epochs  already  mentioned — those  of  Adam  and  Moses. 

3.  It  is  not  simply  the  fact,  however,  of  these  successive 
dispensations  which  is  of  importance  for  our  present  inquiry. 
Still  more  depends  for  a  well-grounded  and  satisfactory  exhi- 
bition of  divine  truth,  as  connected  with  them,  upon  a  cor- 
rect view  of  their  mutual  and  interdependent  relation  to  each 
other ;  the  relation  not  merely  of  the  Mosaic  to  the  Christian, 
but  also  of  the  Patriarchal  to  the  Mosaic.  For  as  the  revela- 
tion of  law  laid  the  foundation  of  a  religious  state  which, 
under  the  moulding  influence  of  providential  arrangements 
and  prophetic  gifts,  developed  and  grew  till  it  had  assumed 
many  of  the  characteristic  features  of  the  Gospel ;  so  the  con- 
stitution of  grace,  in  its  primary  form  after  the  fall,  compar- 
atively vague  and  indistinct  at  first,  gradually  became  more 
definite  and  exact,  and,  in  the  form  of  heaven-derived  or 
time-honored  institutions,  exhibited  the  germ  of  much  that 
was  afterwards  established  as  law.  In  the  primeval  period 
nothing  wears  a  properly  legal  aspect ;  and  it  has  been  one 
of  the  current  mistakes,  especially  in  this  country,  of  theolo- 
gical writers — a  source  of  endless  controversy  and  arbitrary 
explanations — to  seek  there  for  law  in  the  direct  and  obtrusive, 
when,  as  yet,  the  order  of  the  divine  plan  admitted  of  its 
existing  only  in  the  latent  form.  We  read  of  promise  and 
threatening,  of  acts  and  dealings  of  God,  pregnant  with  spir- 
itual light  and  moral  obligation,  meeting  from  the  very  first 
the  wants  and  circumstances  of  fallen  man;  but  of  express 
and  positive  enactments  there  is  no  trace.  Some  of  the 
grounds  and  reasons  of  this  will  be  adverted  to  in  the  im- 
mediately following  chapters.  At  present  we  simply  notice 
the  fact,  as  one  of  the  points  necessary  to  be  kept  in  view 
for  giving  a  right  direction  to  the  course  of  inquiry  before  us. 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  while  in  the  commencing  period  of 
the  Church's  history  we  find  nothing  that  bears  the  rigid  and 
authoritative  form  of  law,  we  find  on  every  hand  the  founda- 
tions of  law;  and  these  gradually  enlarging  and  widening, 
and  sometimes  even  assuming  a  distinctly  legal  aspect,  before 
the  patriarchal  dispensation  closed.  So  that,  when  the  prop- 
erly legal  period  came,  the  materials,  to  a  considerable  extent, 
were  already  in  existence,  and  only  needed  to  be  woven  and 
consolidated  into  a  compact  system  of  truth  and  duty.  It  is 
enough  to  instance,  in  proof  of  what  has  been  stated,  the  case 
of  the  Sabbath,  not  formally  imposed,  though  divinely  insti-' 
tuted  from  the  first — the  rite  of  piacular  sacrifice,  very  similar 
(as  wt  shall  show)  as  to  its  original  institution — the  division 


192  THE  TYPOLOGX   Of  SCBIPTUBK 

of  animals  into  clean  and  unclean — the  consecration  of  the 
tenth  to  God — the  sacredness  of  blood — the  Levirate  usage — 
the  ordinance  of  circumcision.  The  whole  of  these  had  their 
foundations  laid,  partly  in  the  procedure  of  God,  partly  in  the 
consciences  of  men,  before  the  law  entered ;  and  in  regard  to 
some  of  them  the  law's  prescriptions  might  be  said  to  be 
anticipated,  while  still  the  patriarchal  age  was  in  progress. 
As  the  period  of  law  approached,  there  was  also  a  visible 
approach  to  its  distinctive  characteristics.  And,  without  re- 
gard had  to  the  formal  difference  yet  gradual  approximation 
of  the  two  periods,  we  can  as  little  hope  to  present  a  solid 
and  satisfactory  view  of  the  progressive  development  of  the 
divine  plan,  as  if  we  should  overlook  either  their  fundamen- 
tal agreement  with  each  other,  or  their  common  relation  to 
the  full  manifestation  of  grace  and  truth  in  the  kingdom  of 
Christ.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Law — the  inter- 
mediate point  between  the  fall  and  redemption — had  its  prep- 
aration as  well  as  the  Gospel.1 

4.  In  regard  to  the  mode  of  investigation  to  be  pursued 
respecting  particular  types,  as  the  first  place  is  due  to  those 
which  belonged  to  the  institutions  of  religion,  so  our  first 
care  must  be,  according  to  the  principles  already  established, 
to  ascertain  the  views  and  impressions  which,  as  parts  of  an 
existing  religion,  they  were  fitted  to  awaken  in  the  ancient 
worshipper.  It  may,  of  course,  be  impossible  to  say,  in  any 
particular  case,  that  such  views  and  impressions  were  actually 
derived  from  them,  with  as  much  precision  and  definiteness 
as  mav  appear  in  our  description;  for  we  can  not  be  sure 
that  the  requisite  amount  of  thought  and  consideration  was 
actually  addressed  to  the  subject  But  due  care  should  be 
taken  in  this  respect,  not  to  make  the  typical  svmbols  and 
transactions  indicative  of  more  than  what  may,  with  ordinary 
degrees  of  light  and  grace,  have  been  learnea  from  them  by 
men  of  faith  in  Old  Testament  times.  It  is  not,  however, 
to  be  forgotten  that,  in  their  peculiar  circumstances,  much 
greater  insight  was  attainable  through  such  a  medium,  than 
it  is  quite  easy  for  us  now  to  realize.  At  first,  believers  were 
largely  dependent  upon  it  for  their  knowledge  of  divine 
truth:  it  was  their  chief  talent,  and  would  hence  be  culti- 
vated with  especial  care.  Even  afterwards,  when  the  sources 
of  information  were  somewhat  increased,  the  disposition  and 
capacity  to  learn  by  means  of  symbolical  acts  and  institu- 
tions, would  be  materially  aided  oy  that  mode  of  contempla- 
tion which  has  been  wont  to  distinguish  the  inhabitants 

i  p~>  ttia  point  more  fully  treated  in  my  Ijectures  on  ihe  Revelation  of  Lav 

»  txripture,  Lee,  u.  and  xp. 


PEELIMINABY  REMABKS.  193 

of  the  East.  This  proceeds  (to  use  the  language  of  Bahr) 
"  on  the  ground  of  an  inseparable  connection  subsisting  be- 
tween the  spiritual  and  the  bodily,  the  ideal  and  the  real,  the 
seen  and  the  unseen.  According  to  it,  the  whole  actual 
world  is  nothing  but  the  manifestation  of  the  ideal  one ;  the 
entire  creation  is  not  only  a  production,  but  at  the  same  time 
also  an  evidence  and  a  revelation  of  Godhead.  Nothing  real 
is  merely  dead  matter,  but  is  the  form  and  body  of  something 
ideal ;  so  that  the  whole  world,  even  to  its  very  stones,  appears 
instinct  with  life,  and  on  that  account  especially  becomes  a 
revelation  of  Deity,  whose  distinguishing  characteristic  it  is 
to  have  life  in  Himself.  Such  a  mode  of  viewing  things  in 
nature  may  be  called  emphatically  the  religious  one;  for  it 
contemplates  the  world  as  a  great  sanctuary,  the  individual 
parts  of  which  are  so  many  marks,  words,  and  letters  of  a 
grand  revelation-book  of  Godhead,  in  which  God  speaks  and 
imparts  information  respecting  Himself.  If,  therefore,  that 
which  is  seen  and  felt  was  generally  regarded  by  men  as  the 
immediate  impression  of  that  which  is  unseen,  a  speech  and 
revelation  of  the  invisible  Godhead  to  them,  it  necessarily 
follows,  that  if  they  were  to  have  unfolded  to  them  a  con- 
ception of  His  nature,  and  to  have  a  representation  given 
them  of  what  His  worship  properly  consists  in,  the  same 
language  would  require  to  be  used  which  God  spake  with 
them;  the  same  means  of  representation  would  need  to  be 
employed  which  God  Himself  had  sanctioned — the  sensible, 
the  visible,  the  external." l 

The  conclusion  here  drawn  appears  to  go  somewhat  further 
than  the  premises  fairly  warrant.  If  the  learned  author  had 
merely  said  that  there  was  a  propriety  or  fitness  in  employing 
the  same  means  of  outward  representation,  as  they  fell  in  with 
the  prevailing  cast  of  thought  in  those  among  whom  they 
were  instituted,  and  were  thus  wisely  adapted  to  the  end  in 
view,  we  should  have  entirely  concurred  in  the  statement. 
But  that  such  persons  absolutely  required  to  be  addressed  by 
means  of  a  symbolical  language  in  matters  of  religion  could 
scarcely  be  admitted,  without  conceding  that  they  were  inca- 
pable of  handling  another  and  more  spiritual  one,  and  that 
consequently  a  religion  of  symbols  must  have  held  perpetual 
ascendency  in  the  East.  Besides,  it  may  well  be  questioned 
whether  this  "  peculiarly  religious  mode  of  viewing  things," 
as  it  is  called,  was  not,  to  a  considerable  extent,  the  result  of 
a  symbolical  religion  already  established,  rather  than  the 
originating  cause  of  such  a  religion.  At  all  events,  the  reed 

>  Bahr's  Symholik,  b.  i.  p  9  ' 
VOL.  I. — 13. 


194  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUEE. 

necessity  for  the  preponderating  carnality  and  outwardness  of 
the  earlier  dispensations  was  of  a  different  kind.  It  arose 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  institutions  belonging  to  them, 
as  temporary  substitutes  for  the  better  and  the  more  spiritual 
things  of  the  Gospel;  rendering  it  necessary  that  symbols 
should  then  hold  the  place  of  the  coming  reality.  It  is  the 
capital  error  of  Bahr's  system  to  give  to  the  symbolical  in 
religion  a  place  higher  than  that  which  properly  belongs  to 
it;  and  thus  to  assimilate  too  nearly  the  Old  and  the  New — to 
represent  the  symbolical  religion  of  the  Old  Testament  as 
less  imperfect  than  it  really  was,  and  inversely  to  convert 
the  greatest  reality  of  the  New  Testament — the  atoning  death 
of  Christ — into  a  merely  symbolical  representation  of  the 
placability  of  Heaven  to  the  penitent. 

But  with  this  partial  exception  to  the  sentiments  expressed 
in  the  quotation  above  given,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
mode  of  contemplation  and  insight  there  described  has  re- 
markably distinguished  the  inhabitants  of  the  East,  and  that 
it  must  have  peculiarly  fitted  them  for  the  intelligent  use  of 
a  symbolical  worship.  They  could  give  life  and  significance, 
in  a  manner  we  can  but  imperfectly  understand,  to  the  out- 
ward and  corporeal  emblems  through  which  their  converse 
with  God  was  chiefly  carried  on.  To  reason  from  our  own 
case  to  theirs,  would  be  to  judge  by  a  very  false  criterion. 
Accustomed  from  our  earliest  years  to  oral  and  written  dis- 
course, as  the  medium  through  which  we  receive  our  knowl- 
edge of  divine  truth,  and  express  the  feelings  it  awakens 
in  our  bosom,  we  have  some  difficulty  in  conceiving  how 
any  definite  ideas  could  be  conveyed  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  where  that  was  so  sparingly  employed  as  the  means 
of  communication.  But  the  "gray  fathers  of  the  world" 
were  placed  in  other  circumstances,  having  from  their  child- 
hood been  trained  to  the  use  of  symbolical  institutions  as  the 
most  expressive  and  appropriate  channels  of  divine  commun- 
ion. So  that  the  native  tendency  first,  and  then  the  habitual 
use  strengthening  and  improving  the  tendency,  must  have 
rendered  them  adepts,  as  compared  with  Christian  commu- 
nities now,  in  perceiving  the  significance  and  employing  the 
instrumentality  of  religious  symbols. 

5.  When  the  symbolical  institutions  and  services  of  former 
times  shall  have  been  explained  in  the  manner  now  indicated, 
the  next  step  will  be  to  consider  in  detail  the  import  and 
bearing  of  the  typical  transactions  which  took  place  during 
the  continuance  of  each  dispensation.  In  doing  this,  care 
will  require,  in  the  first  instance,  to  be  taken,  that  the  proper 
place  be  assigned  them  as  intended  only  to  exhibit  idea* 


PBFJTMTNARY  BEMRKS.  195 

subsidiary  to  those  embodied  in  the  religion  itself.  And  as 
in  reading  the  typical  symbols,  so  in  reading  the  typical 
transactions  connected  with  them,  we  must  make  the  views 
and  impressions  they  were  fitted  to  convey  to  those  whom 
they  immediately  respected,  concerning  the  character  and 
purposes  of  God,  the  ground  and  measure  of  that  higher 
bearing  which  they  carried  to  the  coming  events  of  the  Gos- 
pel. Nor  are  we  here  again  to  overlook  that  religious  ten- 
dency and  habit  of  mind  which  has  been  noticed  as  a  general 
characteristic  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  East ;  for  they  would 
certainly  be  disposed  to  do  with  the  acts  of  Providence  as 
with  the  works  of  creation — would  contemplate  them  as  man- 
ifestations of  Godhead,  or  revelations  in  the  world  of  sense 
of  what  was  thought  and  felt  in  the  higher  world  of  spirit. 
Besides,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  historical  transac- 
tions referred  to  were  all  special  acts  of  Providence.  While 
they  formed  part  of  the  current  events  of  history,  they  were 
at  the  same  time  so  singularly  planned  and  adjusted,  that  the 
persons  immediately  concerned  in  them  could  scarcely  over- 
look either  their  direct  appointment  by  God,  or  their  intimate 
connection  with  His  plans  and  purposes  of  grace.  It  is  the 
hand  of  God  Himself  that  ever  appears  to  be  directing  the 
transactions  of  Old  Testament  history.  And  the  acts  in  which 
He  more  peculiarly  discovers  Himself  being  the  operations  of 
One  whose  grand  object,  from  the  period  of  the  fall,  was  the 
foiling  of  the  tempter  and  the  raising  up  of  a  seed  of  blessing, 
they  could  scarcely  fail  to  be  regarded  by  intelligent  and  pious 
minds  as  standing  in  a  certain  relation  to  this  centre-point  of 
the  divine  economy.  In  proportion  as  the  people  of  God  had 
faith  to  "  wait  for  the  consolation  of  Israel,"  they  would  also 
have  discernment  to  read,  with  a  view  to  the  better  things  to 
come,  the  disclosures  of  His  mind  and  will,  T\  hich  were  inter- 
woven with  the  history  of  His  operations. 

It  is  in  this  way  we  are  chiefly  to  account  for  God's  fre- 
quent appearance  on  the  stage  of  patriarchal  history,  and  His 
more  direct  personal  agency  in  the  affairs  of  His  chosen  peo- 

Ele.  The  things  that  happened  to  them  could  not  otherwise 
ave  accomplished  the  great  ends  of  their  appointment;  for 
through  these  God  was  continually  making  revelation  of  Him- 
self, and  bringing  those  who  stood  nearest  to  Him  to  a  fuller 
acquaintance  with  His  character  as  the  God  of  life  and  bless- 
ing. It  was  therefore  of  essential  moment  to  the  object  in 
view,  that  His  people  should  be  able  without  hesitation  to 
regard  them  as  indications  of  His  mind — that  they  should 
not  merely  consider  them  as  His,  in  the  general  sense  in 
which  it  may  be  said  that  "God  is  in  history";  but  His  also 


196  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

in  the  more  definite  and  peculiar  sense  of  conveying  speci 
fie  and  progressive  discoveries  of  the  divine  administration. 
How  could  they  have  been  recognized  as  such,  unless  the 
finger  of  God  had,  in  some  form,  laid  its  distinctive  impress 
upon  them?  Taking  into  account,  therefore,  all  the  pecu- 
liarities belonging  to  the  typical  facts  of  Old  Testament  his- 
tory— the  close  relation  in  which  they  commonly  stood  to 
the  rites  and  institutions  of  a  religion  of  hope — the  evident 
manner  in  which  many  of  them  bore  upon  them  the  interpo- 
sition of  God,  and  the  place  occupied  by  others  in  the  an- 
nouncements of  prophecy, — they  had  quite  enough  to  distin- 
guish them  from  the  more  general  events  of  providence,  and 
were  perfectly  capable  of  ministering  to  the  faith  and  the 
just  expectations  of  the  people  of  God 

6.  We  simply  note  further,  that  when  passing  under  review 
acts  and  institutions  of  God  which  stretch  through  successive 
ages  and  dispensations,  there  will  necessarily  recur,  undei 
somewhat  different  forms,  substantially  the  same  exhibitions 
of  divine  truth.  It  was  unavoidable  but  that  all  the  more 
fundamental  ideas  of  religion,  and  the  greater  obligations 
connected  with  it,  should  be  the  subject  of  many  an  ordi- 
nance in  worship,  and  many  a  transaction  in  providence. 
The  briefest  mode  of  treatment,  as  it  would  naturally  involve 
fewest  repetitions,  would  be  to  classify,  first  the  primary 
heads  of  doctrine  and  duty,  and  then  arrange  under  them 
the  successive  exhibitions  given  of  each  in  the  future  enact- 
ments and  dealings  of  God,  without  adhering  rigidly  to  the 
period  of  their  appearance.  But  it  is  necessary,  even  with 
the  risk  of  occasional  repetitions,  to  abide  by  the  historical 
order.  For  thus  alone  can  we  mark  aright  the  course  of 
development,  which  in  a  work  of  this  nature  is  too  important 
an  element  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  fear  of  at  times  trenching 
on  ground  that  may  have  been  partially  trodden  before. 


CHAPTER  FIRST. 

THE  DIVINE  TRUTHS  EMBODIED  IN  THE  HISTORICAL  TRANSACTIONS  ON 
WHICH  THE  FIRST  SYMBOLICAL  RELIGION  FOR  FALLEN  MAN  WAS 
BASED. 

ASSUMING  our  proper  starting-point  here  to  be  the  fall  of 
man  from  his  primeval  state  oi  integrity  and  bliss, — since  it 
was  that  which  opened  the  way  for  the  manifestation  of  grace 
and  the  hope  of  redemption, — we  are  still  not  to  throw  into 
abeyance  whatever  belonged  to  the  primeval  state  itself.  For, 
while  all  was  sadly  changed  by  the  unhappy  event  which 
had  taken  place,  all  was  not  absolutely  lost.  The  knowledge 
which  our  first  parents  had  of  the  work  of  creation,  and  of 
the  character  of  God  as  therein  displayed,  could  not  altogether 
vanish  from  their  minds ;  it  had  formed  the  groundwork  of 
that  adoration  of  God  and  fellowship  with  Him  which  consti- 
tuted the  religion  of  Paradise ;  and  even  after  Paradise  was 
lost,  they  must  still  have  derived  from  it,  and  preserved  in 
the  depths  of  their  spiritual  being,  some  of  the  more  funda- 
mental elements  of  truth  and  duty.  That  all  things  were 
made  by  God,  after  the  manner  described  in  the  commencing 
chapters  of  Genesis  (whether  in  the  precise  terms  there  used 
or  not) ;  that  as  they  came  from  His  hand  they  were,  one  and 
all,  very  good;  that  the  work  of  creation  in  six  days  was 
succeeded  by  a  day  of  peculiar  sacredness  and  rest;  that  man 
himself  was  made  on  the  sixth  day,  as  the  crowning-point  of 
creation — made  in  the  image  of  God,  and  as  such  had  all  here 
below  placed  in  a  relation  of  subservience  to  him,  while,  just 
because  he  bore  God's  image,  he  was  bound  to  use  all  in  obe- 
dience to  the  will  of  God,  and  for  the  glory  of  His  name; — 
these,  and  various  other  collateral  points  of  knowledge,  which 
must  have  been  familiar  to  man  before  the  fall, — since  other- 
wise he  should  have  been  ignorant  alike  of  his  proper  place 
and  calling  in  creation, — could  not  fail  to  abide  also  with  him 
after  it.  And  since  it  pleased  God  not  to  destroy  His  fallen 
creature,  but  to  uerpetuate  his  existence  on  earth,  and,  amid 


198  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBTPTUBE. 

mingled  experiences  of  good  and  evil,  to  animate  him  with 
the  prospect  of  ultimate  recovery,  it  was  to  be  understood  of 
itself  that  all  creation  privileges  and  gifts  stood  as  at  first  con- 
ferred, except  in  so  far  as  they  might  be  expressly  recalled,  or 
through  the  altered  constitution  of  things  placed  in  another 
relation  to  man  than  they  originally  held.  Paradise  itself, 
with  its  ample  heritage  of  life  and  blessing,  had  ceased  to 
be  to  him  what  it  had  been :  though  it  was  there  still,  and 
spoke  as  before  of  good,  it  spoke  otherwise  to  him.  But  the 
mutual  relation  of  the  fallen  pair  themselves,  the  one  to  the 
other ;  their  common  relation  to  the  world  around  them,  with 
its  living  creatures  and  manifold  productions;  their  higher 
relation  to  God,  as  still  bearing,  though  now  sadly  marred,  His 
divine  image,  and  called  to  reflect  it  by  a  becoming  imitation 
of  His  example ; — these  all  remained  in  principle,  only  mod- 
ified in  action  by  the  workings  of  sin  on  man  s  part,  and  on 
God's  by  the  introduction  of  an  economy  of  grace.  In  so  far 
as  there  was  a  withdrawal  of  what  had  been  originally  given, 
or  nature's  heritage  of  good  was  supplanted  by  experiences 
of  evil,  it  but  tended  to  bring  home  to  man's  bosom  the  salu- 
tary truths  and  principles  which  required  to  enter  as  funda- 
mental elements  into  any  religion  which  could  be  suited  to 
his  altered  condition.  But  in  so  far  as  the  old  things  were 
allowed  to  remain,  under  altered  relations  or  with  other  ac- 
companiments than  before,  there  was  a  linking  of  the  past  to 
the  future,  of  creation  to  redemption — turning  the  one  into  a 
pledge,  or  requiring  it  to  be  understood  as  an  image  of  a 
corresponding,  though  higher,  good  yet  to  be  realized. 

The  justice  of  these  remarks  will  more  distinctly  appear 
when  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  particulars.  In 
looking  at  these,  however,  with  a  view  to  estimate  aright 
their  religious  aspect  and  bearing,  we  must  keep  in  mind 
what  has  already  been  indicated  respecting  the  position  of 
our  first  parents,  as  the  recent  possessors  of  a  holy  nature, 
and  the  occupants  of  an  elevated  moral  condition.  For, 
while  they  had  miserably  fallen  and  become  guilty  before 
God,  they  had  not  sunk  into  total  ignorance  and  perversion ; 
and  so  were  not  dealt  with  by  means  of  rigid  enactments 
and  a  minutely  prescribed  directory  of  service,  but  rather 
with  such  consideration  and  regard  as  implied  a  recognition 
in  them  of  a  measure  of  that  capacity  and  intelligence  which 
had  so  lately  been  conversant  with  all  that  is  pure  and  good. 
Possessing  in  God's  works  and  ways,  along  with  the  records 
of  their  own  painful  experience,  the  materials  of  knowing 
what  concerning  Him  they  should  believe  and  do,  they  were 
left  by  the  help  of  these,  and  with  such  grace  as  mignt  now 


TKtJTHS  IN  HISTOBICAL  TKANSACTIONS.  199 

be  expected  by  the  penitent  and  believing,  to  discover  the 
path  of  life  and  blessing.  It  was  only  as  time  proceeded, 
and  dark  events  in  providence  betrayed  the  deep-seated  and 
virulent  corruption  which  had  entered  into  humanity,  that 
other  and  more  stringent  measures  were  resorted  to,  as  well 
to  inculcate  lessons  of  necessary  instruction,  as  to  enforce  a 
becoming  obedience.  Meanwhile,  however,  and  looking  to 
the  conspicuous  and  intentional  absence  of  these,  we  have  to 
inquire  what  of  divine  truth  and  principle  might  be  involved, 
first  in  the  facts  connected  with  the  fall,  then  with  the  sym- 
bols and  institutions  of  worship  appointed  to  the  fallen — 
indicating,  as  we  proceed,  the  typical  bearing  which  any  of 
them  might  present  to  the  future  things  of  redemption.  The 
former  of  these  need  not  detain  us  long. 

1.  And  what  in  respect  to  it  is  obviously  entitled  to  rank 
first,  is  the  doctrine  of  human  guilt  and  coi'ruption. 

From  the  moment  of  their  transgression,  our  first  parents 
knew  that  their  relation  to  God  had  become  sadly  altered. 
The  calm  of  their  once  peaceful  bosoms  was  instantly  agi- 
tated and  disturbed  by  tormenting  fears  of  judgment.  Nor 
did  these  prove  to  be  groundless  alarms ;  thejr  were  the  fore- 
runners of  a  curse  which  was  soon  thundered  in  their  ears  by 
the  voice  of  God,  and  written  out  in  their  exiled  and  blighted 
condition.  It  was  impossible  for  them  to  escape  the  convic- 
tion that  they  were  no  longer  in  the  sight  of  God  very  good. 
And  as  their  posterity  grew,  and  one  generation  sprung  up 
after  another,  the  story  of  the  lost  heritage  of  blessing  (no 
doubt  perpetually  repeated),  and  the  still  continued  exclu- 
sion from  the  hallowed  region  of  life,  must  have  served  to 
keep  up  the  impression  that  sin  had  wholly  corrupted  the 
nature  and  marred  the  inheritance  of  man. 

Evidences  were  not  long  wanting  to  show  that  sin  in  the 
first  pair  was  evil  in  the  root,  which  must,  more  or  less,  com- 
municate itself  to  every  branch  of  the  human  family.  In  the 
first-born  of  the  family  it  sprang  at  once  into  an  ill-omened 
maturity,  as  if  to  give  warning  of  the  disastrous  results  that 
might  be  expected  in  the  future  history  of  mankind.  And 
constantly,  as  the  well-spring  of  life  flowed  on,  the  stream  of 
human  depravity  swelled  into  a  deeper  and  broader  flood. 
There  were  things  in  God's  earlier  procedure  that  were  natu- 
rally fitted  to  check  its  working,  and  repress  its  growth — 
especially  the  mild  forbearance  and  paternal  kindness  with 
which  He  treated  the  first  race  of  transgressors — the  wonder- 
ful longevity  granted  to  them — the  space  left  for  repentance 
even  to  the  greatest  sinners,  while  still  sufficient  means  were 
employed  to  convince  them  of  their  guilt  and  danger, — all 


200  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

seeming  to  betoken  the  tender  solicitude  of  a  father  yearn- 
ing over  his  infant  offspring,  and  restraining  for  a  season  the 
curse  that  now  rested  on  their  condition,  if  so  be  they  might 
be  won  to  His  love  and  service.  But  it  was  the  evil,  not  the 
good,  in  man's  nature,  which  took  advantage  of  this  benigu 
treatment  on  the  part  of  God,  to  ripen  into  strength  and 
fruitfumess.  And,  ere  long,  the  very  goodness  of  God  found 
it  needful  to  interpose,  and  relieve  the  earth  of  the  mass  of 
violence  and  corruption  which,  as  in  designed  contrast  to  the 
benignity  of  Heaven,  had  come  to  usurp  possession  of  the 
world.  So  that,  looking  simply  to  the  broad  facts  of  history, 
the  doctrine  of  human  guilt  and  depravity  stands  forth  with 
a  melancholy  prominence  and  intensity  which  could  leave  no 
doubt  concerning  it  upon  thoughtful  minds. 

2.  Another  doctrine,  which  the  facts  of  primeval  history 
rendered  it  equally  impossible  for  thoughtful  minds  to  gain- 
say or  overlook,  is  the  righteousness  of  GocCs  character  and 
government. 

For,  that  mankind  should  have  been  expelled  from  the 
region  of  life,  and  made  subject  to  a  curse  which  doomed 
them  to  sorrow  and  trouble,  disease  and  death,  in  conse- 
quence of  their  violation  of  a  single  command  of  Heaven, 
was  a  proof  patent  to  all,  and  memorable  in  the  annals  of 
the  world,  that  every  thing  in  the  divine  government  is  sub- 
ordinate to  the  principles  of  rectitude.  "There  was  in  it,"  as 
was  strikingly  and  beautifully  said  by  Irving,  "  a  most  sub- 
lime act  of  holiness.  God,  after  making  Adam  a  creature  for 
an  image  and  likeness  of  Himself,  did  resolve  him  into  vile 
dust  through  viler  corruption,  when  once  he  had  sinned; 
proving  that  one  act  of  sin  was,  in  God's  sight,  of  far  more 
account  than  a  whole  world  teeming  with  beautiful  and 
blessed  life,  which  He  would  rather  send  headlong  into 
death  than  suffer  one  sin  of  His  creature  to  go  unpunished. 
And  though  creation's  teeming  fountain  might  flow  on  ever 
so  long,  still  the  flowing  waters  of  created  life  must  ever 
empty  themselves  into  the  gulf  of  death.  This  is  a  most 
sublime  exaltation  of  the  moral  above  the  material,  showing 
that  all  material  beauty  and  blessedness  of  life  is  but,  as  it 
were,  the  clothing  of  one  good  thought,  which,  if  it  become 
evil,  straightway  all  departs  like  the  shadow  of  a  dream." 
Who  could  seriously  reflect  on  this — on  the  good  that  was 
lost,  and  the  inheritance  of  evil  that  came  in  its  place — with- 
out being  solemnly  impressed  with  the  conviction,  that  the 
sceptre  of  God's  government  is  a  sceptre  of  righteousness, 
and  that  blessing  might  be  expected  under  it  only  by  such 
is  love  righteousness  and  hate  iniquity  ? 


TRUTHS  IN  HISTORICAL  TRANSACTIONS.  201 

3.  But  if  nothing  more  had  been  manifested  of  God  in  the 
facts  of  primeval  history  than  this — had  He  appeared  only  as 
a  righteous  judge  executing  deserved  condemnation  on  the 
guilty,  Adam  and  his  fallen  offspring  might  have  been  ap- 
palled and  terrified  before  Him,  but  they  could  not  have  ven- 
tured to  approach  Him  with  acts  of  worship.  We  notice, 
therefore,  as  another  truth  brought  out  in  connection  with 
the  circumstances  of  the  fall,  and  an  essentially  new  feature 
in  the  divine  character,  the  exhibition  of  grace  which  was  then 
given  on  the  part  of  God  to  the  fallen.  That  every  thing  was 
not  subjected  to  instantaneous  and  overwhelming  destruc- 
tion, was  itself  a  rjroof  of  the  introduction  of  a  principle  of 
grace  into  the  divine  administration.  The  mere  respite  of 
the  sentence  of  death  (which,  if  justice  alone  had  prevailed, 
must  have  been  executed  on  the  very  day  of  transgression), 
and  the  establishment  of  an  order  of  things  which  still  con- 
tained many  tokens  of  divine  goodness,  gave  evidence  of 
thoughts  of  mercy  and  loving-kindness  in  God  toward  man. 
But  as  no  vague  intimations,  or  even  probable  conclusions 
of  reason,  from  the  general  course  of  providence,  could  be 
sufficient  to  reassure  the  heart  on  such  a  matter  as  this,  an 
explicit  assurance  was  given,  that  "the  seed  of  the  woman 
should  bruise  the  head  of  the  serpent," — which,  however  dimly 
understood  at  first,  could  not  fail  even  then  to  light  up  the 
conviction  in  the  sinful  heart,  that  it  was  the  purpose  of  God 
to  aid  man  in  obtaining  a  recovery  from  the  ruin  of  the  fall. 
The  serpent  had  been  the  ostensible  occasion  and  instrument 
of  the  fall, — the  visible  and  living  incarnation  of  the  evil 
power  which  betrayed  man  to  sell  his  birthright  of  life  and 
blessing.  And  that  this  power  should  be  destined  to  be  not 
only  successfully  withstood,  but  bruised  in  the  very  head  by 
the  offspring  of  her  over  whom  he  had  so  easily  prevailed, 
clearly  bespoke  the  intention  of  God  to  defeat  the  malice  of 
the  tempter,  and  secure  the  final  triumph  of  the  lost. 

But  this,  if  done  at  all,  must  evidently  be  done  in  a  way 
of  grace.  All  natural  good  had  been  forfeited  by  the  fall, 
and  death — the  utter  destruction  of  life  and  blessing — had 
become  the  common  doom  of  hurr  anity.  Whatever  inheri- 
tance, therefore,  of  good,  or  whatever  opportunity  of  acquir- 
ing it,  might  be  again  presented,  could  be  traced  to  no  other 
source  than  the  divine  beneficence  freely  granting  what  could 
never  have  been  claimed  on  the  ground  of  merit.  And  as 
the  recovery  promised  necessarily  implied  a  victory  over  the 
might  and  malice  of  the  tempter,  to  be  won  by  the  very 
victims  of  his  artifice,  how  otherwise  could  this  be  achieved 
than  through  the  special  interposition  and  grace  of  the  Most 


202  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

High  ?  Manhood  in  Adam  and  Eve,  with  every  advantage 
on  its  side  of  a  natural  kind,  had  proved  unable  to  stand 
before  the  enemy,  to  the  extent  of  Keeping  the  easiest  pos- 
sible command,  and  retaining  possession  of  an  inheritance 
already  conferred.  How  greatly  more  unable  must  it  have 
felt  itself,  if  left  unaided  and  alone,  to  work  up  against  the 
evil,  and  destroy  the  destroyer !  In  such  a  case,  hope  could 
have  found  no  solid  footing  to  rest  upon  for  the  fulfilment 
of  the  promise,  excepting  what  it  descried  in  the  gracious 
intentions  and  implied  aid  of  the  Promiser.  And  when  it 
appeared,  as  the  history  of  the  world  advanced,  how  the  evil 
continued  to  take  root  and  grow,  so  as  even  for  a  time  to 
threaten  the  extermination  oi  the  good,  the  impression  must 
have  deepened  in  the  minds  of  the  better  portion  of  man- 
kind, that  the  promised  restoration  must  come  through  the 
intervention  of  divine  power  and  goodness, — that  the  saved 
must  owe  their  salvation  to  the  grace  of  God. 

4.  Thus  far  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  the  world  might 
readily  go  in  learning  the  truth  of  God,  by  simply  looking  to 
the  broad  and  palpable  facts  of  history.  And  without  sup- 
posing them  to  have  possessed  any  extraordinary  reach  of 
discernment,  they  might  surely  be  conceived  capable  of  tak- 
ing one  step  more  respecting  the  accomplishment  of  that 
salvation  or  recovery  which  was  now  the  object  of  their  desire 
and  expectation.  Adam  saw — and  it  must  have  been  one  of 
the  most  painful  reflections  which  forced  itself  on  his  mind, 
and  one,  too,  which  subsequent  events  came,  not  to  relieve, 
but  rather  to  embitter  and  aggravate — he  saw  how  his  fall 
carried  in  its  bosom  the  fall  of  humanity;  that  the  nature 
which  in  him  had  become  stricken  with  pollution  and  death, 
went  down  thus  degenerate  and  corrupt  to  all  his  posterity. 
It  was  plain,  therefore,  that  the  original  constitution  of  things 
was  based  on  a  principle  of  headship,  in  virtue  of  which  the 
condition  of  the  entire  race  was  made  dependent  on  that  of 
its  common  parent.  And  the  thought  was  not  far  to  seek,  that 
the  same  constitution  might  somehow  have  place  in  connec- 
tion with  the  work  of  recovery.  Indeed,  it  seems  impossible 
to  understand  how,  excepting  through  such  a  principle,  any 
distinct  hope  could  be  cherished  of  the  attainment  of  salva- 
tion. By  the  one  act  of  Adam's  disobedience,  he  and  his 
posterity  together  were  banished  from  the  region  of  pure  and 
blessed  life,  and  made  subject  to  the  law  of  sin  and  death. 
Whence,  in  such  a  case,  could  deliverance  come  ?  How  could 
it  so  much  as  be  conceived  possible,  to  re-open  the  way  of  life, 
and  place  the  restored  inheritance  of  good  on  a  secure  and 
satisfactory  footing,  except  through  some  second  head  of 


TRUTHS  IK  HISTORICAL  TRANSACTIONS.  203 

humanity  supernaturally  qualified  for  the  undertaking  ?  A 
fallen  head  could  give  birth  only  to  a  fallen  offspring — so  the 
righteousness  of  Heaven  had  decreed;  and  the  prospect  of 
rising  again  to  the  possession  of  immortal  life  and  blessing, 
seemed,  by  its  very  announcement,  to  call  for  the  institution 
of  another  head,  unfallen  and  yet  human,  through  whom  the 
prospect  might  be  realized.  Thus  only  could  the  divine  gov 
ernment  retain  its  uniformity  of  principle  in  the  altered  cir- 
cumstances that  had  occurred ;  and  thus  only  might  it  seem 
possible  to  have  the  end  it  proposed  accomplished. 

We  do  not  suppose  that  the  consideration  of  this  principle 
of  headship,  as  exhibited  in  the  case  of  Adam  and  his  poster- 
ity, could,  of  itself,  have  enabled  those  who  lived  immediately 
subsequent  to  the  fall,  to  obtain  very  clear  or  definite  views 
in  regard  to  the  mode  of  its  application  in  the  working  out 
of  redemption.  We  merely  suppose  that,  in  the  circumstances 
of  the  case,  there  was  enough  to  suggest  to  intelligent  and  dis- 
cerning minds  that  it  should  in  some  way  have  a  place.  But 
the  full  understanding  of  the  principle,  and  of  the  close  har- 
mony it  establishes  between  the  fall  and  redemption,  as  to  the 
descending  curse  of  the  one  and  the  distributive  grace  and 
glory^  of  the  other,  can  be  perceived  only  by  •MS,  whose  privi- 
lege it  is  to  look  from  the  end  of  the  world  to  its  beginnings, 
and  to  trace  the  first  dawn  of  the  Gospel  to  the  effulgence 
of  its  meridian  glory.  Even  the  Jewish  Rabbins,  who  were 
far  from  occupying  the  vantage-ground  we  have  reached, 
could  vet  discern  some  common  ground  between  the  heritage 
of  evil  derived  from  Adam,  and  the  good  to  be  effected  by 
Messiah.  "The  secret  of  Adam,"  one  of  them  remarks,  "is 
the  secret  of  the  Messiah ; "  and  another,  "  As  the  first  man 
was  the  one  that  sinned,  so  shall  the  Messiah  be  the  one  to  do 
sin  away." l  They  recognized  in  Adam  and  Christ  the  two 
heads  of  humanity,  with  whom  all  mankind  must  be  associ- 
ated for  evil  or  for  good.  On  surer  grounds,  however,  than 
lay  within  the  ken  of  their  apprehension,  we  know  that  Adam 
was  in  this  respect  "  the  type  of  Him  that  was  to  come. "  * 

1  See  Tholuck,  Comm.  on  Rom.  v.  12. 

*  Rom.  v.  14.  It  is  literally,  "type  of  the  future  one"  (rvxo?  rov 
//e'/lAovroS),  the  other  or  second  Adam:  not,  however,  generally,  or  in  his 
creation  state  simply,  for  of  that  the  apostle  is  not  speaking,  but  of  his  rela- 
tion to  an  offspring  whose  case  was  involved  in  his  own.  The  sentiment  of 
the  apostle,  taken  in  its  proper  connection,  was  quite  correctly  given  by 
Theophylact:  "For  as  the  old  Adam  rendered  all  subject  to  his  own  fall, 
though  they  had  not  fallen,  so  Christ  justified  all,  though  they  did  nothing 
worthy  of  justification."  The  apostle's  authority,  therefore,  can  not  be  fairly 
quoted  for  any  thing  more  than  we  have  stated  in  the  text;  and  to  isolate  his 
expression,  as  some  do,  from  the  subject  immediately  discoursed  of,  and  turn 
it  into  a  general  statement  respecting  a  prcfiguration  of  the  second  Adam 


204  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUKE. 

But  in  this  respect  alone ;  for  in  all  other  points  we  have  to 
think  of  differences,  not  of  resemblances.  The  principle  that 
belongs  to  them  in  common,  stands  simply  in  the  relation  they 
alike  nold,  the  one  to  a  fallen,  the  other  to  a  restored,  off 
spring.  The  natural  seed  of  Adam  are  dealt  with  as  one  with 
himself,  first  in  transgression,  and  then  in  death,  the  wages 
of  transgression.  And,  in  like  manner,  the  spiritual  seed  of 
Christ  are  dealt  with  as  one  with  Him,  first  in  the  consummate 
righteousness  He  brought  in,  and  then  in  the  eternal  life, 
which  is  its  appointed  recompense  of  blessing.  "As  in  Adam 
all  die,  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive" — all,  namely,  who 
stand  connected  with  Christ  in  the  economy  of  grace,  as  they 
do  with  Adam  in  the  economy  of  nature.  How  could  this  be, 
but  by  the  sin  of  Adam  being  regarded  as  the  sin  of  human- 
ity, and  the  righteousness  of  Christ  as  the  property  of  those 
who  by  faith  rest  upon  His  name?  Hence,  in  the  fifth  chap- 
ter of  the  Epistle  to  the  Komans,  along  with  the  facts  which 
in  the  two  cases  attest  the  doctrine  of  headship,  we  find  the 
parallel  extended,  so  as  to  include  also  the  respective  grounds 
out  of  which  they  spring:  "As  by  the  offence  of  one,  judg- 
ment came  upon  all  men  to  condemnation;  even  so  by  the 
righteousness  of  one,  the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men  unto  jus- 
tification of  life.  For  as  by  one  man's  disobedience  many  were 
made  sinners,  so  by  the  obedience  of  one  shall  many  be  made 
righteous." 

These  statements  of  the  apostle  are  no  more  than  an  ex- 
planation of  the  facts  of  ^the  case  bv  connecting  them  with 
the  moral  government  of* God;  and  it  is  not  in  the  power  of 
human  reason  to  give  either  a  satisfactory  view  of  his  mean- 
ing, or  a  rational  account  of  the  facts  themselves,  on  any  other 
ground  than  this  principle  of  headship.  It  has  also  many 
analogies  in  the  constitution  of  nature  and  the  history  of 
providence  to  support  it.  And  though,  like  every  other  pe- 
culiar doctrine  of  the  Gospel,  it  will  always  prove  a  stone  of 
stumbling  to  the  natural  man,  it  will  never  fail  to  impart 
peace  and  comfort  to  the  child  of  faith.  Some  degree  of  this 
he  will  derive  from  it,  even  by  contemplating  it  in  its  dark- 
est side — by  looking  to  the  inheritance  of  evil  which  it  has 
been  the  occasion  of  transmitting  from  Adam  to  the  whole 
liuman  race.  For,  humbling  as  is  the  light  in  which  it  pre- 
sents the  natural  condition  of  man,  it  still  serves  to  keep  the 
soul  possessed  of  just  and  elevated  views  of  the  goodness  of 
God.  That  all  are  naturally  smitten  with  the  leprosy  of  a 
sore  disease,  is  matter  of  painful  experience,  and  can  not  be 

irrespective  of  the  fall  in  the  first,  ia  to  adduce  the  apostle  as  a  witness  to  a 
point  not  distinctly  before  him. 


TBUTHS  IN  HISTORICAL  TRANSACTIONS.  205 

denied  without  setting  aside  the  plainest  lessons  of  history. 
But  how  much  deeper  must  have  been  the  pain  which  the 
thought  of  this  awakened,  and  how  unspeakably  more  preg- 
nant should  it  have  appeared  with  fear  and  anxiety  for  the 
future,  if  the  evil  could  nave  been  traced  to  the  operation  of 
God,  and  had  existed  as  an  original  and  inherent  element  in 
the  state  and  constitution  of  man !  It  was  a  great  relief  to 
the  wretched  bosom  of  the  prodigal,  and  was  all,  indeed,  that 
remained  to  keep  him  from  the  blackness  of  despair,  to  know 
that  it  was  not  his  father  who  sent  him  forth  into  the  condi- 
tion of  a  swine-herd,  and  bade  him  satisfy  his  hunger  with 
the  husks  on  which  they  fed;  a  truly  consolatory  thought, 
that  these  husks  and  that  wretchedness  were  not  emblems 
of  his  father.  And  can  it  be  less  comforting  for  the  thought- 
ful mind,  when  awakening  to  the  sad  heritage  of  sin  and 
death,  under  which  humanity  lies  burdened,  to  know  that 
this  ascends  no  higher  than  the  first  parent  of  the  human 
family,  and  that,  as  originally  settled  by  God,  the  condition 
of  mankind  was  in  all  respects  "  very  good "  ?  The  evil  is 
thus  seen  to  have  been  not  essential,  but  incidental ;  a  root 
of  man's  planting,  not  of  God's;  an  intrusion  into  Heaven's 
workmanship,  which  Heaven  may  again  drive  out. 

But  a  much  stronger  consolation  is  yielded  by  the  consid- 
eration of  this  principle  of  headship,  when  it  is  viewed  in 
connection  with  the  second  Adam ;  since  it  then  assumes  the 
happier  aspect  of  the  ground-floor  of  redemption — the  actual, 
and,  as  far  as  we  can  perceive,  the  only  possible  foundation 
on  which  a  plan  of  complete  recovery  could  have  been  formed. 
Excepting  in  connection  with  this  principle,  we  can  not  imag- 
ine how  a  remedial  scheme  could  have  been  devised,  that 
should  have  been  in  any  measure  adequate  to  the  necessities 
of  the  case.  Taken  individually  and  apart,  no  man  could 
have  redeemed  either  his  own  soul  or  the  soul  of  a  brother; 
he  could  not  in  a  single  case  have  recovered  the  lost  good,  far 
less  have  kept  it  in  perpetuity  if  it  had  been  recovered:  and 
either  divine  justice  must  have  foregone  its  claims,  or  each 
transgressor  must  have  sunk  under  the  weight  of  his  own 
guilt  and  helplessness.  But  by  means  of  the  principle  which 
admits  of  an  entire  offspring  having  the  root  of  its  condition 
and  the  ground  of  its  destiny  in  a  common  head,  a  door  stood 
open  in  the  divine  administration  for  a  plan  of  recovery  co- 
ixtensive  (hvpothetically)  with  the  work  of  ruin.  And  un- 
Jess  we  could  have  assured  ourselves  of  an  absolute  and  con- 
tinued freedom  from  sin  (which  even  angelic  natures  could 
not  do),  we  may  well  reconcile  ourselves  to  such  a  principle 
in  the  divine  government  as  that  which,  for  one  man's  trans- 


206  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

gression,  has  made  us  partakers  of  a  fallen  condition,  since  in 
tnat  very  principle  we  perceive  the  one  channel,  through 
which  access  could  be  found  for  those  who  have  fallen,  to  the 
peace  and  safety  of  a  restored  condition. 

He  must  know  nothing  aright  of  sin  or  salvation  who  is 
incapable  of  finding  comfort  in  this  view  of  the  subject.  And 
yet  there  is  a  ground  of  comfort  higher  still,  arising  from  the 
prospect  it  secures  for  believers  of  a  condition  better  and 
safer  than  what  was  originally  possessed  by  man  before  the 
fall.  For  the  second  Adam,  who,  as  the  new  head  of  human- 
ity, gives  the  tone  and  character  to  all  that  belongs  to  the 
kingdom  of  God,  is  incomparably  greater  than  the  first,  and 
has  received  for  Himself  and  His  redeemed  an  inheritance 
corresponding  to  His  personal  worth  and  dignity.  So  that 
if  the  principle  of  which  we  speak  appears,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, like  a  depressing  load  weighing  humanity  down  to 
the  very  brink  of  perdition,  it  becomes  at  length  a  divine 
lever  to  raise  it  to  a  height  far  beyond  what  it  originally 
occupied,  or  could  otherwise  have  had  any  prospect  of  reacn- 
ing.  As  the  apostle  graphically  describes  in  his  first  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians,  "  The  first  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy ;  the 
second  man  is  the  Lord  from  heaven.  As  is  the  earthy,  such 
are  they  also  that  are  earthy;  and  as  is  the  heavenly,  such 
are  they  also  that  are  heavenly.  And  as  we  have  borne  the 
image  of  the  earthy,  we  shall  also  bear  the  image  of  the  heav- 
enly." What  an  elevating  prospect !  destined  to  be  conformed 
to  the  image  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  in  consequence  to  share 
with  Him  in  the  life,  the  blessedness,  and  the  glory  which 
He  inherits  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Father !  Coupling  then, 
the  end  of  the  divine  plan  with  the  beginning,  and  entering 
with  childlike  simplicity  into  its  arrangements,  we  find  that 
the  principle  of  headship,  on  which  the  whole  hinges  for  evil 
and  for  good,  is  really  fraught  with  the  richest  beneficence, 
and  should  call  forth  our  admiration  of  the  manifold  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  God;  for  through  this  an  avenue  has  been 
laid  open  for  us  into  the  realms  above,  and  our  natures  have 
become  linked  in  fellowship  of  good  with  what  is  best  and 
highest  iii  the  universe. 

It  thus  appears  that  there  were  four  fundamental  princi- 
ples or  ideas,  which  the  historical  transactions  connected 
with  the  fall  served  strikingly  to  exhibit,  and  which  must 
have  been  incorporated  as  primary  elements  with  the  relig 
ion  then  introduced.  1.  The  doctrine  of  human  guilt  and 
depravity;  2.  Of  the  righteousness  of  God's  character  and 
government;  3.  Of  grace  in  God  as  necessary  to  open,  and 
actually  opening,  the  door  of  hope  for  the  fallen;  4.  And, 


TEUTHS  IN  HISTORICAL  TRANSACTIONS.  207 

finally,  of  a  principle  of  headship,  by  which  the  offspring  of 
a  common  parent  were  associated  in  a  common  ruin,  and 
by  which  again,  under  a  new  and  better  constitution,  the 
heirs  of  blessing  might  be  associated  in  a  common  restoration. 
In  these  elementary  principles,  however,  we  have  rather  the 
basis  of  the  patriarchal  religion,  than  the  religion  itself. 
For  this,  we  must  look  to  the  symbols  and  institutions  of  wor- 
ship. And,  as  tar  as  appears  from  the  records  of  that  early 
time,  the  materials  out  of  which  these  had  at  first  to  be  fash- 
ioned were :  The  position  assigned  to  man  in  respect  to  the 
tree  of  life,  the  placing  before  him  of  the  cherubim  and  the 
flaming  sword  at  the  east  of  Eden,  the  covering  of  his  guilt 
by  the  sacrifice  of  animal  life,  and  his  still  subsisting  relation 
to  the  day  of  rest  originally  hallowed  and  blessed  by  God. 
To  this  last  may  be  added  the  marriage  relationship ;  for  here 
also  the  general  principle  holds,  that  no  formal  change  was 
introduced  after  the  fall,  and  what  was  done  at  the  first  was 
virtually  done  for  all  times.  But  there  still  was  a  perceptible 
difference  between  the  institution  of  marriage  and  the  other 
things  mentioned,  viewed  with  respect  to  the  matters  now 
more  immediately  under  consideration.  This  will  be  ex- 
plained in  the  sequel ;  at  present  it  is  enough  to  state,  that 
while  we  do  not  exclude  marriage  from  our  point  of  view, 
neither  do  we  assign  it  exactly  the  same  place  as  the  «>ther 
ordinances  of  primeval  times. 


CHAPTER  SECOND. 

THE  TREE   OF   LIFE. 

THE  first  mention  made  of  the  tree  of  life  has  respect  to  ita 
place  and  use,  as  part  of  the  original  constitution  of-  things, 
in  which  all  presented  the  aspect  of  relative  perfection  and 
completeness.  "  Out  of  the  ground,"  it  is  said,  "  made  the 
Lord  God  to  grow  every  tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight, 
and  good  for  food;  the  tree  of  life  also  in  the  midst  of  the 
garden,  and  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil."  The 
special  notice  taken  of  these  two  trees  plainly  indicates  their 
singular  and  pre-eminent  importance  in  the  economy  of  the 
primeval  world ;  but  in  different  respects.  The  design  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge  was  entirely  moral :  it  was  set  there  as  the 
test  and  instrument  of  probation ;  and  its  disuse,  if  we  may  so 
speak,  was  its  only  allowable  use.  The  tree  of  life,  however, 
had  its  natural  use,  like  the  other  trees  of  the  garden ;  and 
both  from  its  name,  and  from  its  position  in  the  centre  of  the 

garden,  we  may  infer  that  the  effect  of  its  fruit  upon  the 
uman  frame  was  designed  to  be  altogether  peculiar.  But 
this  comes  out  more  distinctly  in  the  next  notice  we  have  of 
it — when,  from  being  simply  an  ordinance  of  nature,  it  passed 
into  a  symbol  of  grace.  "And  the  Lord  God  said,  Behold 
the  man  is  become  as  one  of  us,  to  know  good  and  evil ;  and 
now  lest  he  put  forth  his  hand,  and  take  also  of  the  tree 
of  life,  and  eat,  and  live  forever ;  therefore  the  Lord  God  sent 
him  forth  from  the  garden  of  Eden,  to  till  the  ground,  from 
whence  he  was  taken.  So  He  drove  out  the  man ;  and  He 
placed  at  the  east  of  the  garden  of  Eden  the  cherubim,  and  a 
naming  sword,  which  turned  every  way,  to  keep  the  way  of 
the  tree  of  life." 

These  words  seem  plainly  to  indicate  that  the  tree  of  life 
was  originally  intended  for  the  food  of  man ;  that  the  fruit  it 
yielded  was  the  divinely  appointed  medium  of  maintaining  in 
nim  the  power  of  an  endless  life ;  and  that  now,  since  he  had 
sinned  against  God,  and  had  lost  all  right  to  the  possession 


THE  TKEE  OF  LIFE.  209 

of  such  a  power,  lie  was  debarred  from  access  to  the  natural 
means  of  sustaining  it,  by  being  himself  rigorously  excluded 
from  the  garden  of  Eden.  What  might  be  the  peculiar  prop- 
erties of  that  tree — whether  in  its  own  nature  it  differed 
essentially  from  the  other  trees  of  the  garden,  or  differed 
only  by  a  kind  of  sacramental  efficacy  attached  to  it — is  not 
distinctly  stated,  and  can  be  matter  only  of  conjecture  or  of 
probable  inference.  But  in  its  relation  to  man's  frame,  there 
apparently  was  this  difference  between  it  and  the  other  trees, 
that  while  they  might  contribute  to  his  daily  support,  it  alone 
could  preserve  in  undecaying  vigor  a  being  to  be  supported. 
In  accordance  with  its  position  in  the  centre  of  the  garden, 
it  possessed  the  singular  virtue  of  ministering  to  human  life 
in  the  fountainhead,  while  the  other  trees  could  only  furnish 
what  was  needed  for  the  exercise  of  its  existing  functions. 
They  might  have  kept  nature  alive  for  a  time,  as  the  fruits  of 
the  earth  do  still ;  but  to  it  belonged  the  property  of  fortify- 
ing the  vital  powers  of  nature  against  the  injuries  of  disease 
and  the  dissolution  of  death,1 

1 1  have  given  here  only  what  seems  to  be  the  fair  and  the  general  import 
of  what  is  written  in  Genesis  respecting  the  tree  of  life;  but  have  avoided  any 
deliverance  on  the  much  disputed  point,  whether  by  inherent  virtue,  or  by  a 
kind  of  sacramental  efficacy,  the  fruit  of  this  tree  was  intended  to  produce  its 
life-giving  influence  upon  man.  The  great  majority  of  Protestant  divines  in- 
cline to  the  latter  view;  although  it  must  be  allowed,  the  idea  of  a  sacramental 
virtue  in  a  natural  constitution  of  things  seems  somewhat  out  of  place,  and 
can  not  very  easily  be  distinguished  from  the  Catholic  view,  which  holds  cer- 
tain things  to  have  been  supernaturally  conferred  on  Adam,  and  others  to  have 
belonged  to  him  by  natiiral  constitution.  But  the  subject,  with  reference  to 
that  specific  question,  is  one  on  which  we  want  materials  for  properly  decid- 
ing, and  regarding  which  opinions  are  almost  sure  to  differ  in  the  future,  as 
they  have  done  in  the  past.  We  could  not  well  have  a  clearer  proof  of  this, 
than  is  afforded  by  two  of  the  latest  commentators  on  Genesis — two  also,  who 
are  so  generally  agreed,  in  sentiment,  that  they  are  engaged  together  in  pro- 
ducing a  commentary  on  the  entire  books  of  the  Old  Testament — Delitzsch 
and  Keil.  The  former  is  of  opinion  that  the  passage,  Gen.  iii.  22,  distinctly 
intimates  that  the  tree  in  question  had  "  the  power  of  life  in  itself,"  "a  power 
of  perpetually  renewing  and  gradually  transforming  the  natural  life  of  man  " 
^  Comm.  iiberdie  Genes,  pp.  154,  194,  2d  ed. ).  And  from  this  he  draws  the  in- 
ference that  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  also  had  the  power  of  death  in 
itself,  rendering  the  participation  of  it  deadly.  Keil,  however,  is  equally  de- 
cided on  the  other  side;  he  says,  "  We  must  not  seek  the  power  of  the  tree  of 
life  in  the  physical  property  of  its  fruit.  No  earthly  fruit  possesses  the  power 
of  rendering  immortal  the  life,  to  the  support  of  which  it  ministers.  Life  has 
its  root,  not  in  the  corporeity  of  man,  but  in  his  spiritual  nature,  in  which  it 
finds  its  stability  and  continuance,  as  well  as  its  origin.  The  body  formed 
of  the  dust  of  earth  could  not,  as  such,  be  immortal ;  it  must  either  again  re- 
turn to  earth  and  become  dust,  or  through  the  Spirit  be  transformed  into  the 
immortal  nature  of  the  soul.  The  power  is  of  a  spiritual  kind  which  can 
transfuse  immortality  into  the  bodily  frame.  It  could  have  been  imparted  to 
the  earthly  tree,  or  its  fruit,  only  through  a  special  operation  of  God's  word, 
through  an  agency  which  we  can  no  otherwise  represent  to  ourselves  than  ot> 
of  a  sacramental  nature,  whereby  earthly  elements  are  consecrated  to  become 

VOL.  -L-L 


210  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUKE. 

It  was  a  great  thing  for  man  that  he  could  thus  read  so 
clearly  his  original  destination  to  immortality.  He  knew  that 
if  he  had  remained  steadfast  in  his  allegiance  to  God,  abiding 
in  the  order  appointed  for  him,  he  should  have  continued  to 
possess  life  in  incorrupt  purity  and  blessedness,  possibly  also 
might  have  been  conscious  of  a  growing  enlargement  and 
elevation  in  its  powers  and  functions.  But  choosing  the 
perilous  course  of  transgression,  he  forfeited  his  inheritance 
of  life,  and  became  subject  to  the  threatened  penalty  of 
death.  The  tree  of  life,  however,  did  not  lose  its  life-sustain- 
ing virtue,  because  the  condition  on  which  man's  right  to 
partake  of  it  had  been  violated.  It  remained  what  God  orig- 
inally made  it.  And  though  effectual  precautions  must  now 
be  taken  to  guard  its  sacred  treasure  irom  the  touch  of  pol- 
luted hands,  yet  there  it  still  remained  in  the  centre  of  the 
garden,  the  object  of  fond  aspirations  as  well  as  hallowed 
'recollections — though  enshrined  in  a  sacredness  which  ren- 
dered it  for  the  present  inaccessible  to  fallen  man.  Why 
should  its  place  have  been  so  carefully  preserved  ?  and  the 
symbols  of  worship,  the  emblems  of  fear  and  hope,  planted 
in  the  very  way  that  led  to  it  ?  Why  but  to  intimate,  that 
the  privilege  of  partaking  of  its  immortal  fruit  was  only  for 
a  season  withheld — not  finally  withdrawn — waiting  till  a 
righteousness  should  be  brought  in,  which  might  again  open 
the  way  to  its  blessed  provisions.  For  as  the  loss  of  right- 
eousness had  shut  up  the  way,  it  was  manifest  that  only  by 
the  possession  of  righteousness  could  a  fresh  access  to  the 
forfeited  boon  be  regained.  And  hence  it  became,  as  we 
shall  see,  one  of  the  leading  objects  of  God's  administration, 
to  disclose  the  necessity  and  unfold  the  nature  and  conditions 
of  such  a  work  of  righteousness  as  might  be  adequate  to  so 
important  an  end.  The  relation  man  now  occupied  to  the 
tree  of  life  could  of  itself  furnish  no  information  on  this 
point.  It  could  only  indicate  that  the  inheritance  of  im- 
mortal life  was  still  reserved  for  him,  on  the  supposition  of 
a  true  and  proper  righteousness  being  attained.  So  that,  in 
this  primary  symbolical  ordinance,  the  hope  which  had  been 
awakened  in  his  bosom  by  the  first  promise,  assumed  the 
pleasing  aspect  of  a  return  to  the  enjoyment  of  that  immortal 
life  from  which,  on  account  of  sin,  he  was  appointed  to  suffer 
a  temporary  exclusion. 

But,  coupled  as  this  hope  was  with  the  present  existence  of 

vessels  and  bearers  of  supernatural  powers "  (Bib.  Comm.  uber  die  B&cher 
Moses,  i.  p.  45).  That  such  is  the  case  now,  there  can  be  no  doubt;  but  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  it  does  not  proceed  on  too  close  an  assimilation  of 
matters  in  the  primeval,  to  those  of  the  existing,  state  of  things. 


THE  TEEE  OF  LIFE.  211 

a  fallen  condition,  and  the  certainty  of  a  speedy  return  for  the 
body  to  the  dust  of  death,  it  of  necessity  carried  along  with  it 
the  expectation  of  a  future  state  of  being,  and  of  a  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead.  The  prospect  of  a  deliverance  from  evil, 
and  of  a  restored  immortality  of  life  and  blessing,  was  not 
to  be  immediately  realized.  The  now  forbidden  tree  of  life 
was  to  continue  unapproachable,  so  long  as  men  bore  about 
with  them  the  body  of  sin  and  death.  They  could  find  the 
way  of  life  only  through  the  charnel-house  of  the  grave. 
And  it  had  been  a  mocking  of  their  best  feelings  and  aspira- 
tions, to  have  held  out  to  them  the  promise  of-  a  victory  over 
the  tempter,  or  to  have  embodied  that  promise  in  a  new  di- 
rection of  their  hopes  toward  the  tree  of*life,  if  there  had  not 
been  couched  under  it  the  assured  prospect  of  a  life  out  of 
death.  In  truth,  religious  faith  and  hope  could  not  have 
taken  form  and  being  in  the  bosom  of  fallen  men,  excepting 
on  the  ground  of  such  an  anticipated  futurity.  Nor  were 
there  long  wanting  events  in  the  history  of  divine  provi- 
dence which  would  naturally  tend  to  strengthen,  in  thought- 
ful and  considerate  minds,  this  hopeful  anticipation  of  a 
future  existence.  The  untimely  death  of  Abel,  and  the  trans- 
lation of  Enoch  in  the  midtime  of  his  days,  must  especially 
have  wrought  in  this  direction ;  since,  viewed  in  connection 
with  the  whole  circumstances  of  the  time,  they  could  scarcely 
fail  to  produce  the  impression,  that  not  only  was  the  real  in- 
heritance of  blessing  to  be  looked  for  in  a  scene  of  existence 
beyond  the  present,  but  that  the  clearest  title  to  this  might 
be  conjoined  with  a  comparatively  brief  and  contracted  por- 
tion of  good  on  earth.  Such  facts,  read  in  the  light  of  the 
promise,  that  the  destroyer  was  yet  to  be  destroyed,  and  a 
pathway  opened  to  the  lost  for  partaking  anew  of  the  food 
of  immortality,  could  lead  to  but  one  conclusion — that  the 
good  to  be  inherited  by  the  heirs  of  promise  necessarily  in- 
volved a  state  of  life  and  blessing  after  this.  We  find  the 
later  Jews — notwithstanding  their  false  views  respecting  the 
Messiah — indicating  in  their  comments  some  knowledge  of 
the  truth  thus  signified  to  the  first  race  of  worshippers  by 
their  relation  to  the  tree  of  life.  For,  of  the  seven  things 
which  they  imagined  the  Messiah  should  show  to  Israel,  two 
were,  the  garden  of  Eden  and  the  tree  of  life ;  and  again, 
"  There  are  also  that  say  of  the  tree  of  life ;  that  it  was  not 
created  in  vain,  but  the  men  of  the  resurrection  shall  eat 
thereof,  and  live  forever."1  These  were  but  the  glimmerings 
of  light  obtained  by  men  who  had  to  grope  their  way  amid 

1  B.  Elias  ben  Mosis,  and  R.  Menahem,  in  Ainswortb  on  Gen.  iii. 


212  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

judicial  blindness  and  the  misguiding  influence  of  hereditary 
delusions.  Adam  and  his  immediate  offspring  were  in  hap- 
pier circumstances  for  the  discernment  of  the  truth  now  un- 
der consideration.  And  unless  the  promise  of  recovery  re- 
mained absolutely  a  dead  letter  to  them,  and  nothing  was 
learned  from  their  symbolical  and  expectant  relationship  to 
the  tree  of  life  (a  thing  scarcely  possible  in  the  circumstances), 
there  must  have  been  cherished  in  their  minds  the  conviction 
of  a  life  after  death,  and  the  hope  of  a  deliverance  from  its 
corruption.  Religion  at  the  very  first  rooted  itself  in  the 
belief  of  immortality.1 

So  much  for  what  the  things  connected  with  the  tree  of 
life  imported  to  those  who  they  more  immediately  respected. 
Let  us  glance  for  a  little  to  the  fuller  insight  afforded  into 
them  for  such  as  possess  the  later  revelations  of  Scripture. 
"  To-day,"  said  Jesus  on  the  cross  to  the  penitent  malefactor, 
"  to-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise" — showing  how 
confidently  He  regarded  death  as  the  way  to  victory,  and  how 
completely  He  was  going  to  bruise  the  head  of  the  tempter, 
since  He  was  now  to  make  good  for  Himself  and  his  people  a 
return  to  the  region  of  bliss,  which  that  tempter  had  been  the 
occasion  of  alienating.  "  To  him  that  overcometh,"  says  the 
same  Jesus,  after  having  entered  on  His  glory,  "  will  I  give  to 
eat  of  the  tree  of  life,  that  is  in  the  midst  of  the  paradise  of 
God."  And  again,  "  Blessed  are  they  that  do  His  command- 
ments, that  they  may  have  right  to  the  tree  of  life,  and  may 
enter  in  through  the  gates  into  the  city." — (Rev.  ii.  7,  xxii.  14.) 
The  least  we  can  gather  from  such  declarations  is,  that  every 
thing  which  was  lost  in  Adam,  shall  be  again  recovered  in 
Christ  for  the  heirs  of  His  salvation.  The  far  distant  ends  of 
revelation  are  seen  embracing  each  other;  and  the  last  look  we 
obtain  into  the  workmanship  of  God  corresponds  with  the  first, 
as  face  answers  to  face.  The  same  God  of  love  and  benefi- 
cence who  was  the  beginning,  proves  Himself  to  be  also  the 
ending.  It  is  the  intermediate  portion  alone  which  seems  less 
properly  to  hold  of  Him — being  in  so  many  respects  marred 
with  evil,  and  checkered  with  adversity  to  the  members  of 
His  family.  Tliere,  indeed,  we  see  much  that  is  unlike  God 
— His  once  beautiful  workmanship  defaced — the  comely  order 
of  His  government  disturbed — the  world  He  had  destined  for 
"  the  house  of  the  glory  of  His  kingdom,"  rendered  the  thea- 
tre of  a  tierce  and  incessant  warfare  between  the  elements 
of  good  and  evil,  in  which  the  better  part  is  too  often  put  to 
the  worse — and  humanity,  which  He  had  made  to  be  an  image 

1  See  further  at  beginning  of  ch.  vi.  §  6. 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE.  213 

of  Himself,  smitten  in  all  its  members  with  the  wound  of  a 
sore  disease,  beset  when  living  with  numberless  calamities, 
and  becoming,  when  dead,  the  prey  of  its  most  vile  and  loath- 
some adversaries.  How  cheering  to  know  that  this  unhappy 
state  of  disorder  and  confusion  is  not  to  be  perpetual — that 
it  occupies  but  the  midregion  of  time — and  is  destined  to  be 
supplanted  in  the  final  issues  of  providence  by  the  restitu- 
tion of  all  things  to  their  original  harmony  and  blessedness 
of  life !  The  tempter  has  prevailed  long,  but,  God  be  thanked, 
he  is  not  to  prevail  forever.  There  is  yet  to  come  forth 
from  the  world,  which  he  has  filled  with  his  works  of  evil, 
new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  where  righteousness  shall 
dwell — another  paradise  with  its  tree  of  life — and  a  ransomed 
people  created  anew  after  the  image  of  God,  and  fitted  for 
the  nigh  destiny  of  manifesting  His  glory  before  the  universe. 

But  great  as  this  is,  it  is  not  the  whole.  The  antitype  is 
always  higher  than  the  type ;  and  the  work  of  grace  tran- 
scends in  excellence  and  glory  the  work  of  nature.  When, 
therefore,  we  are  told  of  a  new  creation,  with  its  tree  of  life, 
and  its  paradisiacal  delights  yet  to  be  enjoyed  by  the  people  of 
God,  much  more  is  actually  promised  than  the  simple  recov- 
ery of  what  was  lost  by  sin.  There  will  be  a  sphere  and  condi- 
tion of  being  similar  in  kind,  but,  in  the  nature  of  the  things 
belonging  to  it,  immensely  higher  and  better  than  what  was 
originally  set  up  by  the  hand  of  God.  The  same  adaptation, 
however,  that  existed  in  the  old  creation  between  the  nature 
of  the  region  and  the  frames  of  its  inhabitants,  shall  exist  also 
in  the  new.  And  as  the  occupants  here  shall  be  the  second 
Adam  and  His  seed — the  Lord  from  heaven,  in  whom  human- 
ity has  been  raised  to  peerless  majesty  and  splendor — there 
must  also  be  a  corresponding  rise  in  the  nature  of  the  things 
to  be  occupied.  A  higher  sphere  of  action  and  eniovment 
shall  be  brought  in,  because  there  is  a  higher  style  of  being  to 
possess  it.  There  shall  not  be  the  laying  anew  of  earth's  old 
foundations,  but  rather  the  raising  of  these  aloft  to  a  nobler 
elevation — not  nature  revived  merely,  but  nature  glorified — 
humanity,  no  longer  as  it  was  in  the  earthy  and  natural 
man,  but  as  it  is  and  ever  shall  be  in  the  spiritual  and  heav- 
enly, and  that  placed  in  a  theatre  of  life  and  blessing  every 
way  suitable  to  its  exalted  condition. 

Such  being  the  case,  it  will  readily  be  understood,  that  the 
promise,  symbolically  exhibited  in  the  Old,  and  distinctly  ex- 
pressed in  New  Testament  Scripture,  of  a  return  to  paradise 
and  its  tree  of  life,  is  not  to  be  taken  literally.  The  dim 
shadow  only,  not  the  very  image  of  the  good  to  be  possessed, 
is  presented  under  this  imperfect  form.  And  we  are  no  more 


214  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKIPTUKE. 

to  think  of  an  actual  tree,  such  as  that  which  originally  stood 
in  the  centre  of  Eden,  than  of  actual  manna,  or  of  a  material 
crown,  which  are,  in  like  manner,  promised  to  the  faithful 
These,  and  many  similar  representations  found  respecting 
the  world  to  come,  are  but  a  figurative  employment  of  the 
best  in  the  past  or  present  state  of  things,  to  aid  the  mind  in 
conceiving  of  the  future ;  as  thus  alone  can  it  attain  to  any 
clear  or  distinct  conception  of  them.  Yet  while  all  are  figu- 
rative, they  have  still  a  definite  and  intelligible  meaning. 
And  when  the  assurance  is  given  to  sincere  believers,  not 
only  of  a  paradise  for  their  abode,  but  also  of  a  tree  of  life 
for  their  participation,  they  are  thereby  certified  of  all  that 
may  be  needed  for  the  perpetual  refreshment  and  support 
of  their  glorified  natures.  These  shall  certainly  require  no 
such  carnal  sustenance  as  was  provided  for  Adam  in  Eden ; 
they  shall  be  cast  in  another  mould.  But  as  they  shall  still 
be  material  frameworks,  they  must  have  a  certain  depend- 
ence on  the  material  elements  around  them  for  the  posses- 
sion of  a  healthful  and  blessed  existence.  The  internal  and 
the  external,  the  personal  and  the  relative,  shall  be  in  harmo- 
nious and  fitting  adjustment  to  each  other.  All  hunger  shall 
be  satisfied,  and  all  thirst  forever  quenched.  The  inhabitant 
shall  never  say,  "  I  am  sick."  And  like  the  river  itself,  which 
flows  in  perennial  fulness  from  the  throne  of  God,  the  well- 
spring  of  life  in  the  redeemed  shall  never  know  interruption 
or  decay.  Blessed,  then,  it  may  be  truly  said,  are  those  who 
do  the  commandments  of  God,  that  they  may  have  right  to 
the  tree  of  life,  and  may  enter  in  through  the  gates  into  the 
city.  What  can  a  doomed  and  fleeting  world  afford  in  com- 
parison of  such  a  prospect  ? 


CHAPTER   THIRD. 

THE  CHERUBIM  (AND  THE  FLAMING  SWORD). 

THE  truths  symbolized  by  man's  new  relation  to  the  tree 
of  life  have  still  to  be  viewed  in  connection  with  the  means 
appointed  by  God  to  fence  the  way  of  approach  to  it,  and  the 
creaturely  forms  that  were  now  planted  on  its  borders.  "  And 
the  Lord  God,"  it  is  said,  "placed  at  the  east  of  the  garden  of 
Eden  cherubim,  and  a  naming  sword,  which  turned  every  way, 
to  keep  the  way  of  the  tree  of  life."  We  can  easily  imagine 
that  the  sword,  with  its  naming  brightness  and  revolving 
movements,  might  be  suspended  there  simply  as  the  emblem 
of  God's  avenging  justice,  and  as  the  instrument  of  man's 
exclusion  from  the  region  of  life.  In  that  one  service  the 
end  of  its  appointment  might  be  fulfilled,  and  its  symbolical 
meaning  exhausted.  Such,  indeed,  appears  to  have  been  the 
case.  But  the  cherubim,  which  also  had  a  place  assigned 
them  toward  the  east  of  the  garden,  must  have  had  some 
further  use,  as  the  sword  alone  would  have  been  sufficient 
to  prevent  access  to  the  forbidden  region.  The  cherubim 
must  have  been  added  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  more 
complete  the  instruction  intended  to  be  conveyed  to  man  by 
means  of  the  symbolical  apparatus  here  presented  to  his  con- 
templation. And  as  these  cherubic  figures  hold  an  important 
place  also  in  subsequent  revelations,  we  shall  here  enter  into 
a  somewhat  minute  and  careful  investigation  of  the  subject. 

There  is  nothing  to  be  expected  here  from  etymological 
researches.  Many  derivations  and  meanings  have  been  as- 
cribed to  the  term  cherub;  but  nothing  certain  has  been  estab- 
lished regarding  it;  and  it  may  now  be  confidently  assigned 
to  that  class  of  words,  whose  original  import  is  involved  in 
hopeless  obscurity.1  In  the  passage  of  Genesis  above  cited, 

1  Hoffman  has  lately  revived  the  notion,  that  3V13  (cherub)  is  simply 
2WT  (chariot),  with  a  not  unusual  transposition  of  letters;  and  conceives  the 

name  to  have  been  given  to  the  cherubim  on  account  of  their  being  employed 
as  the  chariot  or  throne  of  Jehovah  (  Weissagung  und  Erfullung,  i.  p.  80,>. 
Delitzsch,  too,  is  not  disinclined  to  this  derivation  and  meaning,  though  he 


216  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOEIPTUBE. 

where  the  word  first  occurs,  not  only  is  no  clue  given  in  re- 

fard  to  the  meaning  of  the  name,  but  there  is  not  even  any 
escription  presented  of  the  objects  it  denoted;  they  are 
spoken  of  as  definite  forms  or  existences,  of  which  the  name 
alone  afforded  sufficient  indication.  This  will  appear  more 
clearly  if  we  adhere  to  the  exact  rendering :  "  And  He  placed 
(or,  made  to  dwell)  at  the  east  of  the  garden  of  Eden  tlie  cher- 
ubim " — not  certain  unknown  figures  or  imaginary  existences, 
but  the  specific  forms  of  being,  familiarly  designated  by  that 
name. 

In  other  parts  of  Scripture,  however,  the  defect  is  in  great 
measure  supplied ;  and  by  comparing  the  different  statements 
there  contained  with  each  other,  and  putting  the  whole  to- 
gether, we  may  at  least  approximate,  if  not  absolutely  arrive 
at,  a  full  and  satisfactory  knowledge  of  the  symbol. 

But  in  ascertaining  the  sense  of  Scripture  on  the  subject, 
there  are  two  considerations  which  ought  to  be  borne  in  mind, 
as  a  necessary  check  on  extreme  or  fanciful  deductions.  The 
first  is,  that  in  this,  as  well  as  in  other  religious  symbols 
(those,  for  example,  connected  with  food  and  sacrifice),  there 
may  have  been,  and  most  probably  was,  a  progression  in  the 
use  made  of  it  from  time  to  time.  In  that  case,  the  represen- 
tations employed  at  one  period  must  have  been  so  constructed 
as  to  convey  a  fuller  meaning  than  those  employed  at  an- 
other. Whatever  aspects  of  divine  truth,  therefore,  mav  be 
discovered  in  the  later  passages  which  treat  of  the  cherubim, 
should  not,  as  a  matter  of  course,  be  ascribed  in  all  their  en- 
tireness  to  the  earlier.  Kespect  must  always  be  had  to  the 
relative  differences  of  place  and  time.  Another  consideration 
is,  that  whatever  room  there  may  be  for  diversity  in  the  way 
now  specified,  we  must  not  allow  any  representation  that 
may  be  given  in  one  place — any  specific  representation — to 
impose  a  generic  meaning  on  the  symbol,  which  is  not  borne 
out,  but  possibly  contradicted,  by  representations  in  others. 
Progressive  differences  can  only  affect  what  is  circumstantial, 
not  what  is  essential  to  the  subject ;  and  all  that  is  properly 
fundamental  in  the  cherubic  imagery,  must  be  found  in  ac- 
cordance, not  with  a  part  merely,  but  with  the  whole  of  the 
evidence  contained  in  Scripture  regarding  it. 

With  these  guiding  principles  in  our  eye,  we  proceed  to 
exhibit  what  may  be  collected  from  the  different  notices  of 

would  rather  derive  the  term  from  313  (to  lay  hold  of),  and  understands  it 

of  the  cherubim  as  laying  hold  of  and  bearing  away  the  throne  of  Jehovah 
(Die  Genesis  Ausgelegl,  p.  46,).  Thenius  in  his  Comm.  on  Kings  also  adopts 
this  derivation,  but  applies  it  differently.  Both  derivations,  and  the  ideas 
respecting  the  cherubim  they  are  intended  to  support,  are  quite  conjectural. 


THE  CHERUBIM.  217 

Scripture  on  the  subject — ranging  our  remarks  under  the 
following  natural  divisions:  the  descriptions  given  of  the 
cherubim  as  to  form  and  appearance,  the  designations  ap- 
plied to  them,  the  positions  assigned  them,  and  the  kinds  of 
agency  with  which  they  are  associated. 

1.  In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  points — the  descriptions 
given  of  the  cherubim  as  to  form  and  appearance — there  is 
nothing  very  definite  in  the  earlier  Scriptures,  nor  are  the 
accounts  in  the  later  perfectly  uniform.  Even  in  the  de- 
tailed narrative  of  Exodus  respecting  the  furniture  of  the 
tabernacle,  it  is  still  taken  for  granted,  that  the  forms  of  the 
cherubim  were  familiarly  known ;  and  we  are  told  nothing  con- 
cerning their  structure,  besides  its  being  incidentally  stated 
that  they  had  faces  and  wings.1  It  would  seem,  however, 
that  while  certain  elements  were  always  understood  to  enter 
into  the  composition  of  the  cherub,  the  form  given  to  it  was 
not  absolutely  fixed,  but  admitted  of  certain  variations.  The 
cherubim  seen  by  Ezekiel  beneath  the  throne  of  God,  are  rep- 
resented as  having  each  four  faces  and  four  wings ;  *  while  in 
the  description  subsequently  given  by  him  of  the  cherubic 
representations  on  the  walls  of  his  ideal  temple,3  mention  is 
made  of  only  two  faces  appearing  in  each.  In  Revelation,4 
again,  while  four  composite  forms,  as  in  Ezekiel,  are  adhered 
to  throughout,  the  creatures  are  represented  as  not  having 
each  four  faces,  but  having  each  a  face  after  one  of -the  four 
types;  and  the  number  of  wings  belonging  to  each  is  also 
different — not  four,  but  six.6  In  the  Apocalyptic  vision  the 
creatures  themselves  appear  full  of  eyes,  before  and  behind, 
as  they  do  also  in  Ezek.  x.  12,  where  "  their  whole  flesh,  and 
their  backs,  and  their  hands,  and  their  wings,"  are  said  to 
have  been  full  of  eyes ;  but  in  Ezekiel's  first  vision,  the  eyes 
were  confined  only  to  the  wheels  connected  with  the  cheru- 
bim." It  is  impossible,  therefore,  without  doing  violence  to 
the  accounts  given  in  the  several  delineations,  to  avoid  the 
conviction  that  a  certain  latitude  was  allowed  in  regard  to 
the  particular  forms ;  and  that,  as  exhibited  in  vision  at  least, 
they  were  not  altogether  uniform  in  appearance.  They  were 
uniform,  however,  in  two  leading  respects,  which  may  hence 
be  regarded  as  the  more  important  elements  in  the  cherubic 

1  Ex.  xiv.,  xxxvii.  s  Ezek.  i.  6. 

3  Ezek.  xli.  18,  19.  *  Rev.  iv.  7,  8. 

6  Vitringa  justly  remarks  as  to  the  difference  between  St  John's  represen- 
tation and  Ezekiel's  respecting  the  faces,  that  "it  is  not  of  essential  moment; 
for  the  beasts  most  intimately  connected  together  form,  as  it  were,  one  beast- 
existence,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  all  the  properties  are  rep- 
resented as  belonging  to  each  of  the  four,  or  singly  to  each." 

«  Ezek.  L  18. 


218  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOKIPTUBE. 

form.  They  had,  first,  the  predominating  appearance  of  a 
man— a  man's  body  and  gesture — as  is  evident,  first,  from 
their  erect  position;  then,  from  the  notice  in  Ezek.  i  5, 
"they  had  the  appearance  of  a  man";  and  also  from  the 
peculiar  expression  in  Rev.  iv.  7,  where  it  is  said  of  the 
third,  "  that  it  had  a  face  as  a  man  " — which  is  best  under- 
stood to  mean,  that  while  the  other  creatures  were  unlike 
man  in  the  face,  though  like  in  the  body,  this  was  like  in 
the  face  as  well.  The  same  inference  is  still  farther  deduci- 
ble  from  the  part  taken  by  the  cherubim  in  the  Apocalypse, 
along  with  the  elders  and  the  redeemed  generally,  in  cele- 
brating the  praise  of  God.  The  other  point  of  agreement  is, 
that  in  all  the  descriptions  actually  given,  the  cherubim  have 
a  composite  appearance— with  the  form  of  a  man,  indeed,  pre- 
dominating, but  with  other  animal  forms  combined — those, 
namely,  of  the  lion,  the  ox,  and  the  eagle. 

Now,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  three  creatures, 
along  with  man,  make  up  together,  according  to  the  estima- 
tion of  a  remote  antiquity,  the  most  perfect  forms  of  animal 
existence.  They  belong  to  those  departments  of  the  visible 
creation  which  constitute  the  first  in  rank  and  importance  of 
its  three  kingdoms — the  kingdom  of  animal  life.  And  in  that 
kingdom  they  belong  to  the  highest  class — to  that  which  pos- 
sesses warm  blood  and  physical  life  in  its  fullest  development. 
Nay,  in  that  highest  class  they  are  again  the  highest;  for  the 
ox  in  ancient  times  was  placed  above  the  horse,  on  account 
of  his  fitness  for  useful  and  patient  labor  in  the  operations  of 
husbandry.  And  hence  the  old  Jewish  proverb :  "  Four  are 
the  highest  in  the  world — the  lion  among  wild  beasts,  the  ox 
among  tame  cattle,  the  eagle  among  birds,  man  among  all 
(creatures) ;  but  God  is  supreme  over  all."  The  meaning  is, 
that  in  these  four  kinds  are  exhibited  the  highest  forms  of 
creature-life  on  earth,  but  that  God  is  still  infinitely  exalted 
above  these;  since  all  creature-life  springs  out  of  His  fulness, 
and  is  dependent  on  His  hand.  So  that  a  creature  com- 
pounded of  all  these — bearing  in  its  general  shape  and 
structure  the  lineaments  of  a  man,  but  associating  with  the 
human  the  appearance  and  properties  also  of  the  three  next 
highest  orders  of  animal  existence — might  seem  a  kind  of 
concrete  manifestation  of  created  life  on  earth — a  sort  of 
personified  creaturehood. 

But  the  thought  naturally  occurs,  why  thus  strangely 
amalgamated  and  combined  ?  If  the  object  had  been  simply 
to  afford  a  representation  of  creaturely  existence  in  general 
by  means  of  its  higher  forms,  we  would  naturally  have  ex- 
pected them  to  stand  apart  as  they  actually  appear  in  nature^ 


THE  CHERUBIM.  219 

But  instead  of  this  they  are  thrown  into  one  representation ; 
and  so,  indeed,  that  however  the  representation  may  vary, 
still  the  inferior  forms  of  animal  life  constantly  appear  aa 
grafted  upon,  and  clustering  around,  the  organism  of  man. 
There  is  thus  a  striking  unity  in  the  diversity — a  human 
ground  and  body,  so  to  speak — in  the  grouped  figures  of  the 
representation,  which  could  not  fail  to  attract  the  notice  of  a 
contemplative  mind,  and  must  have  been  designed  to  form 
an  essential  element  in  the  symbolical  representation.  It  is 
an  ideal  combination;  no  such  composite  creature  as  the 
cherub  exists  in  the  actual  world;  and  we  can  think  of  no 
reason  why  the  singular  combination  it  presents  of  animal 
forms,  should  have  been  set  upon  that  ot  man  as  the  trunk 
and  centre  of  the  whole,  unless  it  were  to  exhibit  the  higher 
elements  of  humanity  in  some  kind  of  organic  connection  with 
certain  distinctive  properties  of  the  inferior  creation.  The  na- 
ture of  man  is  incomparably  the  highest  upon  earth,  and  towers 
loftily  above  all  the  rest  by  powers  peculiar  to  itself.  And 
yet  we  can  easily  conceive  how  this  very  nature  of  man  might 
be  greatly  raised  and  ennobled,  by  having  superadded  to  its 
own  inherent  qualities  those  of  which  the  other  animal  forms 
now  before  us  stand  as  the  appropriate  types. 

Thus  the  lion  among  ancient  nations  generally,  and  in  par- 
ticular among  the  Hebrews,  was  the  representative  of  king- 
like  majesty  and  peerless  strength.  All  the  beasts  of  the 
field  stand  in  awe  of  him,  none  being  able  to  cope  with  him 
in  might;  and  his  roar  strikes  terror  wherever  it  is  heard. 
Hence  the  lion  is  naturally  regarded  as  the  king  of  the  forest, 
where  might  is  the  sole  ground  of  authority  and  rule.  And 
hence,  also,  lions  were  placed  both  at  the  right  and  left  of 
Solomon's  throne,  as  symbols  of  royal  majesty  and  supreme 
power. — As  the  lion  among  quadrupeds,  so  the  eagle  is  king 
among  birds,  and  stands  pre-eminent  in  the  two  properties 
that  more  peculiarly  distinguish  the  winged  creation — those 
of  vision  and  flight.  The  term  eagle-eyed  has  been  quite  pro- 
verbial in  every  age.  The  eagle  perceives  his  prey  from  the 
loftiest  elevation,  where  he  himself  appears  scarcely  discerni- 
ble; and  it  has  even  been  believed  that  he  can  descry  the 
smallest  fish  in  the  sea,  and  look  with  undazzled  gaze  upon 
the  sun.  His  power  of  wing,  however,  is  still  more  remark- 
able :  no  bird  can  fly  either  so  high  or  so  far.  Moving  with 
king-like  freedom  and  velocity  through  the  loftiest  regions 
and  the  most  extended  space,  we  naturally  think  of  him  as 
the  fittest  image  of  something  like  angelic  nimbleness  of 
action.  It  is  this  more  especially  which  is  symbolically  asso- 
ciated with  the  eagle  in  Scripture.  While  only  one  passing 


220  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

reference  is  made  there  to  the  eagle's  strength  of  vision,' 
there  is  very  frequent  allusion  to  his  extraordinary  power  of 
flight.2  And  hence,  too,  in  Rev.  iv.  7,  the  epithet  flying  is 
attached  to  the  eagle,  to  indicate  that  this  is  tne  quality  spe- 
cially made  account  of. — Finally,  the  ox  was  among  the  an- 
cients the  common  image  of  patient  labor  and  productive 
energy.  It  naturally  came  to  bear  this  signification  from  its 
early  use  in  the  operations  of  husbandry — in  ploughing  and 
harrowing  the  ground,  then  bearing  home  the  sheaves,  and 
at  last  treading  out  the  corn.  On  this  account  the  bovine 
form  was  so  frequently  chosen,  especially  in  agricultural  coun- 
tries like  Egypt,  as  the  most  appropriate  symbol  of  Deity  in 
its  inexhaustible  productiveness.  And  if  associated  with  man, 
the  idea  would  instinctively  suggest  itself  of  patient  labor  and 
productive  energy  in  working. 

Such,  then,  not  by  any  conjectural  hypothesis  or  strained 
interpretations,  but  by  the  simplest  reading  of  the  descriptions 
given  in  the  Bible,  appear  to  have  been  the  generic  form  and 
idea  of  the  cherubim.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  we 
should  apply  the  light  furnished  by  those  passages  in  which 
they  are  described,  to  those  also  in  which  they  are  not ;  and 
that  what  are  expressly  named  and  described  as  the  cherubim, 
when  seen  in  prophetic  vision,  must  be  regarded  as  substan- 
tially agreeing  with  those  which  had  a  visible  appearance 
and  a  local  habitation  on  earth — for,  otherwise,  the  subject 
would  be  involved  by  Scripture  itself  in  inextricable  confu- 
sion. Assuming  these  points,  we  are  warranted  to  think  of 
the  cherubim,  wherever  they  are  mentioned,  as  presenting  in 
their  composite  structure,  and  having  as  the  very  basis  of 
that  structure,  the  form  of  man — the  only  being  on  earth  that 
is  possessed  of  a  rational  and  moral  nature ;  yet  combining, 
along  with  this,  and  organically  uniting  to  it,  the  animal 
representatives  of  majesty  and  strength,  winged  velocity,  pa- 
tient and  productive  labor.  Why  united  and  combined  thus, 
the  mere  descriptions  of  the  cherubic  appearances  give  no 
intimation ;  we  must  search  for  information  concerning  it  in 
the  other  points  that  remain  to  be  considered.  So  far,  we 
have  been  simply  putting  together  the  different  features  of 
the  descriptions,  and  viewing  the  cherubic  figures  in  their 
individual  characteristics  and  relative  bearing.* 

1  Job  mix.  29. 

2  Dent,  xxviii.  49;  Job  ix.  26;  Prov.  xxiii.  5;  Hab.  i  8,  etc. 

3  Hengstenberg,  in  his  remarks  on  Key.  iv.  7,  regarding  the  cherubim  aa 
simple  representations  of  the  animal  creation  on  earth,  objects  to  any  «ym- 
bolical  meaning  being  attached  to  the  separate  animal  forms,  on  the  special 
ground,  that  in  that  passage  of  Revelation  it  is  the  calf,  not  the  ox,  which  is 


THE  CHEEUBIM.  221 

2.  We  named,  as  our  second  point  of  inquiry,  the  designa- 
tions applied  to  the  cherubim  in  Scripture.  The  term  cheru- 
bim itself  being  the  more  common  and  specific  of  these,  would 
naturally  call  for  consideration  first,  if  any  certain  key  could 
be  found  to  its  correct  import.  But  this  we  have  already 
assigned  to  the  class  of  things  over  which  a  hopeless  obscurity 
now  hangs.  There  is  another  designation,  however,  orig- 
inally applied  to  them  by  Ezekiel,  and  the  sole  designation 
given  to  them  in  the  Apocalypse,  from  which  some  additional 
light  may  be  derived.  This  expression  is  in  the  original  nVn, 
animantia,  living  ones,  or  living  creatures.  The  Septuagiut 
uses  the  quite  synonymous  term  CoSa ;  and  this,  again,  is  the 
word  uniformly  employed  by  St.  John,  when  speaking  of  the 
cherubim.  It  has  been  unhappily  rendered  by  our  translators 
beasts  in  the  Kevelation ;  thus  incongruously  associating  with 
the  immediate  presence  and  throne  of  God  mere  animal  exist- 
ences, and  identifying  in  name  the  most  exalted  creaturely 
forms  of  being  in  the  heavenly  places,  with  the  grovelling 
symbolical  head  of  the  antichristian  and  ungodly  powers  of 
the  world.  This  is  what  bears,  in  the  Apocalypse,  the  dis- 
tinctive name  of  the  beast  (Qrjpiov)^  and  the  name  should 
never  have  been  applied  to  the  ideal  creatures,  which  derive 
their  distinctive  appellation  from  the  fulness  of  life  belonging 
to  them — the  living  ones.  The  frequency  with  which  this 
name  is  used  of  the  cherubim  is  remarkable.  In  Ezekiel 
and  the  Apocalypse  together  it  occurs  nearly  thirty  times, 
and  may  consequently  be  regarded  as  peculiarly  expressive 
of  the  symbolical  character  of  the  cherubim.  It  presents 
them  to  our  view  as  exhibiting  the  property  of  life  in  its 
highest  state  of  power  and  activity;  therefore,  as  creatures 
altogether  instinct  with  life.  And  the  idea  thus  conveyed 
by  the  name  is  further  substantiated  by  one  or  two  traits  asso- 
ciated with  them  in  Ezekiel  and  the  Apocalypse.  Such,  es- 

mentioned  in  the  description — as  it  is  also  found  once  in  the  description  of 
Ezekiel,  ch.  i.  7.  He  thinks  this  can  not  be  accidental,  but  must  have  been 
designed  to  prevent  our  attributing  to  it  the  symbolical  meaning  of  produc- 
tiveness, or  such  like;  as  no  one  would  think  of  associating  that  idea  with  a 
calf.  We  are  surprised  at  so  weak  an  objection  from  such  a  quarter.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  —and  it  is  not  only  admitted  but  contended  for  by  Hengsten- 
berg  himself  in  his  Bettrage,  i.  p.  161  sq. — that  in  connection  with  that  sym- 
bolical meaning  the  ox-worship  of  Egypt  was  erected,  and  from  Egypt  was 
introduced  among  the  Israelites  at  Sinai,  and  again  by  Jeroboam  at  a  later 
period.  Yet  in  Scripture  it  is  always  spoken  of,  not  as  ox,  or  bull,  or  cow, 
but  as  calf-worship.  This  conclusively  shows  that,  symbolically  viewed,  no 
distinction  was  made  between  ox  and  calf.  And  in  the  description  of  sucli 
figures  as  the  cherubim,  calf  might  very  naturally  be  substituted  for  ox,  sim- 
ply on  account  of  the  smaller  and  more  delicate  outline  which  the  form  would 
present.  It  is  possible  the  same  appearance  may  partly  have  contributed  to 
the  idols  at  Bethel  and  Dan  being  designated  calves  rather  than  oxen. 


222  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

pecially,  is  the  very  singular  multiplicity  of  eyes  attached  to 
them,  appearing  first  in  the  mystic  wheels  that  regulated 
their  movements,  and  afterwards  in  the  cherubic  forms  them- 
selves. For  the  eye  is  the  symbol  of  intelligent  life;  the 
living  spirit's  most  peculiar  organ  and  index.  And  to  repre- 
sent the  cherubim  as  so  strangely  replenished  with  eyes, 
could  only  be  intended  to  make  them  known  to  us  as  wholly 
inspirited.  Accordingly,  in  the  first  vision  of  Ezekiel,  in 
which  the  eyes  belonged  immediately  to  the  wheels,  "the 
spirit  of  the  living  creatures"  is  said  to  have  been  in  the 
wheels;1  where  the  eye  was,  there  also  was  the  intelligent, 
thinking,  directive  spirit  of  life.  Another  and  quite  similar 
trait,  is  the  quick  and  restless  activity  ascribed  to  them  by 
both  writers — by  Ezekiel,  when  he  represents  them  as  "  run- 
ning and  returning  "  with  lightning  speed ;  and  by  St.  John, 
when  he  describes  them  as  "  resting  not  day  or  night."  In- 
cessant motion  is  one  of  the  most  obvious  symptoms  of  a 
plenitude  of  life.  We  instinctively  associate  the  property 
of  life  even  with  the  inanimate  things  that  exhibit  motion — 
such  as  fountains  and  running  streams,  which  are  called 
living,  in  contradistinction  to  stagnant  pools,  that  seem  dead 
in  comparison.  And  in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  these  two  sym- 
bols of  life — eyes  and  fountains — have  their  common  symbol- 
ical meaning  marked  by  the  employment  of  the  same  term 
to  denote  them  both  (j?J?).  So  that  creatures  which  appeared 
to  be  all  eyes  and  all  motion,  are,  in  plain  terms,  those  in 
which  the  powers  and  properties  of  life  were  quite  peculiarly 
displayed. 

We  believe  there  is  a  still  further  designation  applied  to 
the  same  objects  in  Scripture — the  seraphim  of  Isaian.1  It  is 
in  the  highest  degree  improbable  that  the  prophet  should  by 
that  name,  so  abruptly  introduced,  have  pointed  to  an  order 
of  existences,  or  a  form  of  being,  nowhere  else  mentioned  in 
Scripture ;  but  quite  natural  that  he  should  have  referred  to 
the  cherubim  in  the  sanctuary,  as  the  scene  of  the  vision  lay 
there ;  and  the  more  especially  as  three  characteristics — the 
possession  by  each  of  six  wings,  the  position  of  immediate 
proximity  to  the  throne  of  God,  and  the  threefold  proclama- 
tion of  Jehovah's  holiness — are  those  also  which  reappear 
again,  at  the  very  outset,  in  St.  John's  description  of  the 
cherubim.  That  they  should  have  been  called  by  the  name 
of  seraphim  (burning  ones)  is  no  way  inconsistent  with  this 
idea,  for  it  merely  embodies  in  a  designation  the  thought 
symbolized  in  the  vision  of  Ezekiel  under  the  appearance  of 

i  Ezek.  i.  20.  «  Isa.  Ti 


THE  CHEEUBIM.  223 

fire,  giving  forth  flashes  of  lightning,  which  appeared  to 
stream  from  the  cherubim.1  In  both  alike  the  fire,  whether 
connected  with  the  name  or  the  appearance,  denoted  the 
wrath,  which  was  the  most  prominent  feature  in  the  divine 
manifestation  at  the  time.  But  as,  in  thus  identifying  the 
cherubim  with  the  seraphim,  we  tread  on  somewhat  doubtful 
ground,  we  shall  make  no  further  use  of  the  thoughts  sug- 
gested by  it. 

It  is  right  to  notice,  however,  that  the  designation  we 
have  more  particularly  considered,  and  the  emblematic  rep- 
resentations illustrative  of  it,  belong  to  the  later  portions  of 
Scripture,  which  treat  of  the  cherubim ;  and  while  we  can  not 
but  regard  the  idea  thus  exhibited,  as  essentially  connected 
with  the  cherubic  form  of  being,  a  fundamental  element  in 
its  meaning,  it  certainly  could  not  be  by  any  means  so  vividly 
displayed  in  the  cherubim  of  the  tabernacle,  which  were 
stationary  figures.  Nor  can  we  tell  distinctly  how  it  stood 
in  this  respect  with  the  cherubim  of  Eden;  we  know  not 
what  precise  form  and  attitude  were  borne  by  them.  But 
not  only  the  representations  we  have  been  considering — the 
analogy  also  of  the  cherubim  in  the  tabernacle,  with  their 
outstretched  wings,  as  in  the  act  of  flying,  and  their  eyes 
intently  directed  toward  the  mercy-seat,  as  if  they  were  act- 
ually beholding  and  pondering  what  was  there  exhibited, 
may  justly  lead  us  to  infer,  that  in  some  way  or  another  a 
life-like  appearance  was  also  presented  by  the  cherubim  of 
Eden.  Absolutely  motionless  or  dead-like  forms  would  have 
been  peculiarly  out  of  place  in  the  way  to  the  tree  of  life. 
Yet  of  what  sort  this  fulness  of  life  might  be  which  was  ex- 
hibited in  the  cherubim,  we  have  still  had  no  clear  indication. 
From  various  things  that  have  pressed  themselves  on  our 
notice,  it  might  not  doubtfully  have  been  inferred  to  be  life 
in  the  highest  sense — life  spiritual  and  divine.  But  this 
comes  out  more  prominently  in  connection  with  the  other 
aspects  of  the  subject  which  remain  to  be  contemplated. 

3.  We  proceed,  therefore,  to  the  point  next  in  order — the 
positions  assigned  to  the  cherubim  in  Scripture.  These  are  prop- 
erly but  two,  and,  by  having  regard  only  to  what  is  essential 
in  the  matter,  they  might  possibly  be  reduced  to  one.  But 
as  they  ostensibly  and  locally  differ,  we  shall  treat  them 
apart.  They  are  the  garden  of  Eden,  and  the  dwelling-place 
or  throne  of  God  in  the  tabernacle. 

The  first  local  residence  in  which  the  cherubim  appear, 
was  the  garden  of  Eden — the  earthly  paradise.  What,  how- 

i  Ezek  i  13. 


224  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

ever,  was  this  but  the  proper  home  and  habitation  of  life  ?  of 
life  generally,  but  emphatically  of  the  divine  life !  Every 
thing  there  seemed  to  breathe  the  air,  and  to  exhibit  the 
fresh  and  blooming  aspect  of  life.  Streams  of  water  ran 
through  it  to  supply  all  its  productions  with  nourishment, 
and  keep  them  in  perpetual  healthfulness ;  multitudes  of  liv- 
ing creatures  roamed  amid  its  bowers,  and  the  tree  of  life,  at 
once  the  emblem  and  the  seal  of  immortality,  rose  in  the 
centre,  as  if  to  shed  a  vivifying  influence  over  the  entire 
domain.  Most  fitly  was  it  called  by  the  Rabbins,  "  the  land 
of  life."  But  it  was  life,  we  soon  perceive,  in  the  higher  sense 
— life,  not  merely  as  opposed  to  bodily  decay  and  dissolution, 
but  as  opposed  also  to  sin,  which  brings  death  to  the  soul. 
Eden  was  the  garden  of  delight,  which  God  gave  to  man  as 
the  image  of  Himself,  the  possessor  of  that  spiritual  and  holy 
life  which  has  its  fountainhead  in  God.  And  the  moment 
man  ceased  to  fulfil  the  part  required  of  him  as  such,  and 
yielded  himself  to  the  service  of  unrighteousness,  he  lost 
his  heritage  of  blessing,  and  was  driven  forth,  as  an  heir 
of  mortality  and  corruption,  from  the  hallowed  region  of 
life.  When,  therefore,  the  cherubim  were  set  in  the  gar- 
den to  occupy  the  place  which  man  had  forfeited  by  his 
transgression,  it  was  impossible  but  that  they  should  be 
regarded  as  the  representatives,  not  of  life  merely,  but  of 
the  life  that  is  in  God,  and  in  connection  with  which  evil 
can  not  dwell.  This  they  were  by  their  very  position  within 
the  sacred  territory — whatever  other  ideas  may  have  been 
symbolized  by  their  peculiar  structure  and  more  special  re- 
lations. 

The  other  and  more  common  position  assigned  to  the  cher- 
ubim is  in  immediate  connection  with  the  dwelling-place  and 
throne  of  God.  This  connection  comes  first  into  view  when 
the  instructions  were  given  to  Moses  regarding  the  construc- 
tion of  the  tabernacle  in  the  wilderness.  As  the  tabernacle 
was  to  be,  in  a  manner,  the  habitation  of  God,  where  He  was 
to  dwell  and  manifest  Himself  to  His  people,  the  whole  of 
the  curtains  forming  the  interior  of  the  tent  were  commanded 
to  be  interwoven  with  cherubic  figures.  But  as  the  inner 
sanctuary  was  more  especially  the  habitation  of  God,  where 
He  fixed  His  throne  01  holiness,  Moses  was  commanded,  for 
the  erection  of  this  throne,  to  make  two  cherubim,  one  on 
each  end  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  and  to  place  them  so 
that  they  should  stand  with  outstretched  wings,  their  faces 
toward  each  other,  and  toward  the  mercy-seat,  the  lid  of  the 
ark,  which  lay  between  them.  That  mercy-seat,  or  the  space 
immediately  above  it,  bounded  on  either  side  by  the  cheru- 


THE  CHERUBIM.  225 

bim,  and  covered  by  their  wings,1  was  the  throne  of  God,  as 
the  God  of  the  Old  Covenant,  the  ideal  seat  of  the  divine 
commonwealth  in  Israel.  "There"  said  God  to  Moses,  "will 
I  meet  with  thee,  and  I  will  commune  with  thee  from  above 
the  mercy-seat,  from  between  the  two  cherubim  which  are 
upon  the  ark  of  the  testimony,  of  all  things  which  I  will 
give  thee  in  commandment  to  the  children  of  Israel."  *  This 
is  the  fundamental  passage  regarding  the  connection  of  the 
cherubim  with  the  throne  of  God ;  and  it  is  carefully  to  be 
noted,  that  while  the  seat  of  the  divine  presence  and  glory  is 
said  to  be  above  the  mercy-seat,  it  is  also  said  to  be  between 
the  cherubim.  The  same  form  of  expression  is  used  also  in 
another  passage  in  the  Pentateuch,  which  may  likewise  be 
called  a  fundamental  one:  "And  when  Moses  was  gone  into 
the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation  (more  properly,  the  tent 
of  meeting)  to  speak  with  Him,  then  he  heard  the  voice 
of  one  speaking  unto  him  from  off  the  mercy-seat  that  was 
upon  the  ark  of  testimony,  from  between  the  two  cherubim."* 
Hence  the  Lord  was  represented  as  the  God  "  who  dwelleth 
between  the  cherubims, '  according  to  our  version,  and  cor- 
rectly as  to  the  sense ;  though  as  the  verb  is  used  without  a 
preposition  in  the  original,  the  more  exact  rendering  would 
be,  the  God  who  dwelleth  in  (inhabiteth,  |?^),  or  occupies 
(3B*,  viz.,  as  a  throne  or  seat)  the  cherubim.  These  two  verbs 
are  interchanged  in  the  form  of  expression,  which  is  used 
with  considerable  frequency;4  and  it  is  from  the  use  of  the 
first  of  them  that  the  Jewish  term  Shekinah  (the  indwelling), 
in  reference  to  the  symbol  of  the  divine  presence,  is  derived. 
The  space  above  the  mercy-seat,  enclosed  by  the  two  cher- 
ubim, with  their  outstretched  wings,  bending  and  looking 
toward  each  other,  was  regarded  as  the  local  habitation 
which  God  possessed  as  a  peculiar  dwelling-place  or  occu- 
pied as  a  throne  in  Israel.  And  it  is  entirely  arbitrary,  and 
against  the  plain  import  of  the  two  fundamental  passages, 
to  insert  above,  as  is  still  very  often  done  by  interpreters 
("dwelleth,"  or  "sitteth  enthroned  above  the  cherubim"); 
still  more  so  to  make  any  thing  depend,  as  to  the  radical 
meaning  of  the  symbol,  on  the  seat  of  God  being  considered 
above  rather  than  between  the  cherubim. 

Hengstenberg  is  guilty  of  this  error,  when  he  represents 
the  proper  place  of  the  cherubim  as  being  under  the  throne 
of  God,  and  holds  that  to  be  their  first  business — though  he 


'  Ex.  ixv.  20.  •»  Ex.  xxv.  22.  3  Num.  yii.  89. 

4  For  example,  1  Sam.  iv.  4;  2  Sam.  vi.  2;  Pa.  Inx.  1,  xcix.  1,  etc. 

VOL.  I. — 15 


226  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

disallows  the  propriety  of  regarding  them  as  material  supports 
to  the  throne.1  The  meaning  he  adopts  of  the  symbol  abso- 
lutely required  them  to  be  in  this  position ;  since  only  by  their 
being  beneath  the  throne  of  God,  could  they  with  any  fitness 
be  regarded  as  imaging  the  living  creation  below,  as  subject 
to  the  overruling  power  and  sovereignty  of  God.*  Hofmann 
and  Delitzsch  go  still  farther  in  this  direction ;  and,  adopting 
the  notion  repudiated  by  Hengstenberg,  consider  the  cheru- 
bim as  the  formal  bearers  of  Jehovah's  throne.  Delitzsch 
even  affirms,  in  opposition  (we  think)  to  the  plainest  language, 
that  wherever  the  part  of  the  cherubim  is  distinctly  mentioned 
in  Old  Testament  Scripture,  they  appear  as  the  bearers  of  Je- 
hovah and  His  throne,  and  that  He  sat  enthroned  upon  the 
cherubim  in  the  midst  of  the  worldly  sanctuary.3  There  are, 
in  fact,  only  two  representations  of  the  kind  specified.  One 
is  in  Ps.  xviii.  10,  where  the  Lord  is  described  as  coming 
down  for  judgment  upon  David's  enemies,  and  in  doing  so, 
"riding  upon  a  cherub,  and  flying  upon  the  wings  of  the 
wind " — obviously  a  poetical  delineation,  in  which  it  would 
be  as  improper  to  press  closely  what  is  said  of  the  position 
of  the  cherub,  as  what  is  said  of  the  wings  of  the  wind.  The 
one  image  was  probably  introduced  with  the  view  merely 
of  stamping  the  divine  manifestation  with  a  distinctively  cov- 
enant aspect,  as  the  other  for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  the 
resistless  speed  of  its  movements.  But  if  the  allusion  is  to  be 
taken  less  ideally,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  manifes- 
tation described  is  primarily  and  pre-eminently  for  judgment, 
not  as  in  the  temple,  for  mercy ;  and  this  may  explain  the 
higher  elevation  given  to  the  seat  of  divine  majesty.  The 
same  holds  good  also  of  the  other  representation,  in  which 
the  throne  or  glory  of  the  Lord  appears  before  the  cherubim. 
It  is  in  Ezekiel,  where,  in  two  several  places  (ch.  i.  26,  x.  1), 
there  is  first  said  to  have  been  a  firmament  upon  the  heads 
of  the  living  creatures,  and  then  above  the  firmament  the 
likeness  of  a  throne.  The  description  is  so  palpably  different 
from  that  given  of  the  Sanctuary,  that  it  would  be  absurd  to 
subordinate  the  one  to  the  other.  We  must  rather  hold,  that 
in  the  special  and  immediate  object  of  the  theophany  exhib- 
ited to  Ezekiel,  there  was  a  reason  for  giving  such  a  position 

1  Comm.  on  Kev.  iv.  6. 

8  This  is  all  he  makes  of  them,  both  in  his  Commentary  on  Revelation,  and 
his  later  treatise  on  the  subject  in  an  Appendix  to  his  work  on  Ezekiel. 
Consequently,  according  to  his  view,  "they  belong  merely  to  the  depart- 
ment of  natural  religion."  Why  should  they,  then,  never  appear  till  sin 
has  entered,  and  again  finally  disappear  when  sin  and  its  results  have  been 
taken  away  ?  Much  that  is  said  of  them  is  inexplicable  on  such  a  view. 

3  D*e  Genesis  Ausgelegt,  p.  145. 


THE  CHERUBIM.  227 

to  the  throne  of  God — one  somewhat  apart  from  the  cherubim, 
and  elevated  distinctly  above  them.  And  we  believe  that 
reason  may  be  found,  in  its  being  predominantly  a  manifes- 
tation for  judgment,  in  which  the  seat  of  the  divine  glory 
naturally  appeared  to  rise  to  a  loftier  and  more  imposing  ele- 
vation than  it  was  wont  to  occupy  in  the  Holiest.  This  seems 
to  be  clearly  indicated  in  ch.  x.  4,  where,  in  proceeding  to  the 
work  of  judgment,  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  represented  as 
going  up  from  the  cherub,  and  standing  over  the  threshold  of 
the  house ;  immediately  after  which  the  house  was  filled  with 
the  cloud — the  symbol  of  divine  wrath  and  retribution.  We 
may  add  that  the  statement  in  Rev.  iv.  6,  where  the  cherubic 
forms  are  said  to  have  appeared  "  in  the  midst  of  the  throne, 
and  round  about  the  throne,"  is  plainly  at  variance  with  the 
idea  oi  their  acting  as  supports  to  the  throne.  The  throne 
itself  is  described  in  ver.  2,  as  being  laid  (Ixezro)  in  heaven, 
which  excludes  the  supposition  of  any  instruments  being 
employed  to  bear  it  aloft.  And  from  the  living  creatures 
being  represented  as  at  once  in  the  midst  of  the  throne,  and 
round  about  it,  nothing  further  or  more  certain  can  be  in- 
ferred beyond  their  appearing  in  a  position  of  immediate 
nearness  to  it  The  elders  sat  round  about  the  throne ;  but 
the  cherubim  appeared  in  it  as  well  as  around  it — implying 
that  theirs  was  the  place  of  closest  proximity  to  the  Divine 
Being  who  sat  on  it. 

The  result,  then,  which  arises,  we  may  almost  say  with 
conclusive  certainty,  from  the  preceding  investigation,  is, 
that  the  kind  of  life  which  was  symbolized  by  the  cherubim, 
was  life  most  nearly  and  essentially  connected  with  God — 
life  as  it  is,  or  shall  be,  held  by  those  who  dwell  in  His  im- 
mediate presence,  and  form,  in  a  manner,  the  very  inclosure 
and  covering  of  His  throne :  pre-eminently,  therefore,  spirit- 
ual and  holy  life.  Holiness  becomes  God's  house  in  general; 
and  of  necessity  it  rises  to  its  highest  creaturely  representa- 
tion in  those  wno  are  regarded  as  compassing  about  the  most 
select  and  glorious  portion  of  the  house — the  seat  of  the  living 
God  Himself.  Whether  His  peculiar  dwelling  were  in  the 
garden  of  Eden,  or  in  the  recesses  of  a  habitation  made  by 
men's  hands,  the  presence  of  the  cherubim  alike  proclaimed 
Him  to  be  One,  who  indispensably  requires  of  all  who  are 
round  about  Him,  the  property  of  life,  and  in  connection 
therewith  the  beauty  of  holiness,  which  is,  in  a  sense,  the 
life  of  life,  as  possessed  and  exercised  by  His  intelligent 
offspring. 

4.  Our  last  point  of  scriptural  inquiry  was  to  be  respecting 
the  Tdnds  of  agency  attributed  to  the  cherubim. 


228  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKIPTUBE. 

We  naturally  again  revert,  first,  to  what  is  said  of  them 
in  connection  with  the  garden  of  Eden,  though  our  informs 
tion  there  is  the  scantiest  It  is  merely  said  that  the  cheru- 
bim were  made  to  dwell  at  the  east  of  the  garden,  and  a 
flaming  sword,  turning  every  way,  to  keep  the  way  to  the 
tree  of  life.  The  two  instruments — the  cherubim  and  the 
sword — are  associated  together  in  regard  to  this  keeping; 
and  as  the  text  draws  no  distinction  between  them,  it  is  quite 
arbitrary  to  say,  with  Bahr,  that  the  cherubim  alone  had  to  do 
with  it,  and  to  do  with  it  precisely  as  Adam  had.  It  is  said 
of  Adam,  that  "  God  put  him  into  the  garden  to  dress  it 
and  to  keep  it," 1  not  the  one  simply,  but  both  together.  He 
had  to  do  a  twofold  office  in  respect  to  the  garden — to  attend 
to  its  cultivation,  as  far  as  might  then  be  needful,  and  to 
keep  or  preserve  it,  namely,  from  the  disturbing  and  desola- 
ting influence  of  evil.  The  charge  to  keep  plainly  implied 
some  danger  of  losing.  And  it  oecame  still  plainer,  when 
the  tenure  of  possession  was  immediately  suspended  on  a 
condition,  the  violation  of  which  was  to  involve  the  penalty 
of  death.  The  keeping  was  to  be  made  good  against  a  pos- 
sible contingence,  which  might  subvert  the  order  of  God, 
and  change  the  region  of  life  into  a  charnel-house  of  death. 
Now  it  is  the  same  word  that  is  used  in  regard  to  the  cheru- 
bim and  the  flaming  sword :  these  now  were  to  keep — not, 
however,  like  Adam,  the  entire  garden,  but  simply  the  way  to 
the  tree  of  life ;  to  maintain  in  respect  to  this  one  point  the 
settled  order  of  Heaven,  and  that  more  especially  by  render- 
ing the  way  inaccessible  to  fallen  man.  There  is  liere  also, 
no  doubt,  a  present  occupancy;  but  the  occupancy  of  only 
a  limited  portion,  a  mere  pathway,  and  for  the  definite  pur- 
pose of  defending  it  from  unhallowed  intrusion. 

Still,  not  simply  for  defence:  for  occupancy  as  well  as 
defence.  And  the  most  natural  thought  is,  that  as  in  the 
keeping  there  was  a  twofold  idea,  so  a  twofold  representation 
was  given  to  it:  that  the  occupancy  was  more  immediately 
connected  with  the  cherubim,  and  the  defence  against  intru- 
sion with  the  flaming  sword.  One  does  not  see  otherwise 
what  need  there  could  have  been  for  both.  Nor  is  it  possible 
to  conceive  how  the  ends  in  view  could  otherwise  have  been 
served.  It  was  beyond  all  doubt  for  man's  spiritual  instruc- 
tion that  such  peculiar  instruments  were  employed  at  the 
east  of  the  garden  of  Eden,  to  awaken  and  preserve  in  his 
bosom  right  thoughts  of  the  God  with  whom  he  had  to  do. 
But  an  image  of  terror  and  repulsion  was  not  alone  sufficient 

'  Gen.  ii.  15. 


CHEEUBIM  fc& 

for  this.  .There  was  needed  along  with  it  an  image  of  mercy 
and  hope;  and  both  were  given  in  the  appearances  that 
actually  presented  themselves.  When  the  eye  of  man  looked 
to  the  sword,  with  its  burnished  and  fiery  aspect,  he  could 
not  but  be  struck  with  awe  at  the  thought  of  God's  severe 
and  retributive  justice.  But  when  he  saw,  at  the  same  time, 
in  near  and  friendly  connection  with  that  emblem  of  Je- 
hovah's righteousness,  living  or  life-like  forms  of  being  cast 
pre-eminently  in  his  own  mould,  but  bearing  along  with  his 
the  likeness  also  of  the  choicest  species  of  the  animal  creation 
around  him — when  he  saw  this,  what  could  he  think  but 
that  still  for  creatures  of  earthly  rank,  and  for  himself  most 
of  all,  an  interest  was  reserved  by  the  mercy  of  God  in  the 
things  that  pertained  to  the  blessed  region  of  life?  That 
region  could  not  now,  by  reason  of  sin,  be  actually  held  by 
him;  but  it  was  provisionally  held — by  composite  forms  of 
creature  life,  in  which  his  nature  appeared  as  the  predomi- 
nating element.  And  with  what  design,  if  not  to  teach  that 
when  that  nature  of  his  should  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the 
avenging  justice  of  God,  it  should  regain  its  place  in  the  holy 
and  blissful  haunts  from  which  it  had  meanwhile  been  ex- 
cluded? So  that,  standing  before  the  eastern  approach  to 
Eden,  and  scanning  with  intelligence  the  appearances  that 
there  presented  themselves  to  his  view,  the  child  of  faith 
might  say  to  himself,  That  region  of  life  is  not  finally  lost 
to  me.  It  has  neither  been  blotted  from  the  face  of  crea- 
tion, nor  entrusted  to  natures  of  another  sphere.  Earthly 
forms  still  hold  possession  of  it.  The  very  natures  that  have 
lost  the  privilege  continue  to  have  their  representation  in 
the  new  and  unreal-like  occupants  that  are  meanwhile  ap- 
pointed to  keep  it.  Better  things,  then,  are  doubtless  in 
reserve  for  them ;  and  my  nature  which  stands  out  so  con- 
spicuously above  them  all,  fallen  though  it  be  at  present,  ia 
assuredly  destined  to  rise  again,  and  enjoy  in  the  reality 
what  is  there  ideally  and  representatively  assigned  to  it. 

There  is  nothing  surely  unnatural  or  far-fetched  in  such  a 
line  of  reflection.  It  manifestly  lay  within  the  reach  of  the 
very  earliest  members  of  a  believing  seed ;  especially  since  the 
light  it  is  supposed  to  have  conveyed  did  not  stand  alone,  but 
was  only  supplementary  to  that  embodied  in  the  first  grand 
promise  to  the  fallen,  that  the  seed  of  the  woman  should  bruise 
the  head  of  the  serpent.  The  supernatural  machinery  at  the 
east  of  the  garden  merely  showed  how  this  bruising  was  to 
proceed,  and  in  what  result  it  might  be  expected  to  issue. 
It  was  to  proceed,  not  by  placing  in  abeyance  the  manifesta- 
tion of  divine  righteousness,  but  by  providing  for  its  being 


230  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCMPTTJEE. 

exercised  without  the  fallen  creature  being  destroyed.  Nor 
should  it  issue  in  a  partial,  but  in  a  complete  recovery — nay, 
in  the  possession  of  a  state  higher  than  before.  For  the  crea- 
turehood  of  earth,  it  would  seem,  was  yet  to  stand  in  a  closer 
relation  to  the  manifested  glory  of  God,  and  was  to  become  ca- 
pable of  enduring  sights  and  performing  ministrations  which 
were  not  known  in  the  original  constitution  of  things  on  earth. 
It  might  not  be  possible,  perhaps,  for  the  primeval  race  of 
worshippers  to  go  further,  or  to  get  a  more  definite  insight 
into  the  purposes  of  God,  by  contemplating  the  cherubim. 
We  scarcely  think  it  could.  But  we  can  easily  conceive  how 
the  light  and  hope  therewith  connected  would  be  felt  to  grow, 
when  this  embodied  creaturehood — or,  if  we  rather  choose  to 
regard  it,  this  ideal  manhood — was  placed  in  the  sanctuary 
of  God's  presence  and  glory,  and  so  as  to  form  the  immediate 
boundary  and  covering  of  His  throne.  A  relation  of  greater 
nearness  to  the  divine  was  there  evidently  won  for  the  human 
and  earthly.  And  not  that  only,  but  a  step  also  in  advance 
toward  the  actual  enjoyment  of  what  was  ideally  exhibited. 
For  while,  at  first,  men  in  flesh  and  blood  were  not  permitted 
to  enter  into  the  region  of  holy  life  occupied  by  the  cherubim, 
but  only  to  look  at  it  from  without,  now  the  way  was  at 
length  partially  laid  open,  and  in  the  person  of  the  high  priest, 
through  the  blood  of  atonement,  they  could  make  an  approach, 
though  still  only  at  stated  times,  to  the  very  feet  of  the  cher- 
ubim of  glory.  The  blessed  and  hopeful  relation  of  believing 
men  to  these  singular  attendants  of  the  divine  majesty  rose 
thus  more  distinctly  into  view,  and  in  more  obvious  connec- 
tion also  with  the  means  through  which  the  ultimate  realiza- 
tion was  to  be  attained.  But  the  information  in  this  line, 
and  by  means  of  these  materials,  reaches  its  furthest  limit, 
when,  in  the  Apocalyptic  vision  of  a  triumphant  Church,  the 
four  and  twenty  elders,  who  represent  her,  are  seen  sitting  in 
royal  state  and  crowned  majesty  close  beside  the  throne,  with 
the  cherubic  forms  in  and  around  it.  There,  at  last,  the  ideal 
and  the  actual  freely  meet  together — the  merely  symbolical 
representatives  of  the  life  of  God,  and  its  real  possessors,  the 
members  of  a  redeemed  and  glorified  Church.  And  the  in- 
spiring element  of  the  whole,  that  which  at  once  explains  all 
and  connects  all  harmoniously  together,  is  the  central  object 
appearing  there  of  "  a  Lamb,  as  if  it  had  been  slain,  in  the 
midst  of  the  throne,  and  of  the  four  living  creatures,  and  in 
the  midst  of  the  elders."  Here  the  mystery  resolves  itself;  in 
this  consummate  wonder  all  other  wonders  cease,  all  difficul- 
ties vanish.  The  Lamb  of  God,  uniting  together  heaven  and 
earth,  human  guilt  and  divine  mercy,  man's  nature  and  God's 


THE  CHERUBIM.  231 

perfections,  has  opened  a  pathway  for  the  fallei  to  the  very 
height  and  pinnacle  of  created  being.  With  Him  in  the  midst, 
as  a  sun  and  shield,  there  is  ground  for  the  most  secure  stand- 
ing, and  for  the  closest  fellowship  with  God. 

We  must  glance,  however,  at  the  other  kinds  of  agency 
connected  with  the  cherubim.  In  the  first  vision  of  Ezekiel, 
it  is  by  their  appearance,  which  we  have  already  noticed,  not 
by  their  agency,  properly  speaking,  that  they  convey  instruc- 
tion regarding  the  character  of  the  manifestations  of  Himself 
which  the  Lord  was  going  to  give  through  the  prophet.  But 
at  ch.  x.  7,  where  the  approaching  judgment  upon  Jerusalem 
is  symbolically  exhibited  by  the  scattering  of  coals  of  fire  over 
the  city,  the  fire  is  represented  as  being  taken  from  between 
the  cherubim,  and  by  the  hand  of  one  of  them  given  to  the 
ministering  angel  to  be  cast  forth  upon  the  city.  It  was  thus 
indicated — so  far  we  can  easily  understand  tne  vision — that 
the  coming  execution  of  judgment  was  not  only  to  be  of  God, 
but  of  Him  in  connection  with  the  full  consent  and  obedient 
service  of  the  holy  powers  and  agencies  around  Him.  And 
the  still  more  specific  indication  might  also  be  meant  to  be 
conveyed,  that  as  the  best  interests  of  humanity  required  the 
work  of  judgment  to  be  executed,  so  there  should  not  be  want- 
ing a  fitting  instrument  for  the  purpose ;  what  the  cherub's 
hand  symbolically  did,  would  in  due  time  be  executed  by  a 
human  agency. 

An  entirely  similar  action,  differing  only  in  the  form  it 
assumes,  is  connected  with  the  cherubim  in  ch.  xv.  of  Reve- 
lation, where  one  of  the  living  creatures  is  represented  as  giv- 
ing into  the  hands  of  the  angels  the  seven  last  vials  of  the 
wrath  of  God.  The  rational  and  living  creaturehood  of  earth, 
in  its  state  of  alliance  and  fellowship  with  God,  thus  appeared 
to  go  along  with  the  concluding  judgments,  which  were  nec- 
essary to  bring  the  evil  in  the  world  to  a  perpetual  end.  Nor 
is  the  earlier  and  more  prominent  action  ascribed  to  them 
materially  different — that  connected  with  the  seven-sealed 
Book.  This  book,  viewed  generally,  unquestionably  repre- 
sents the  progress  and  triumph  of  Christ's  kingdom  upon 
earth  over  all  that  was  there  naturally  opposed  to  it.  The 
first  seal,  when  opened,  presents  the  Divine  King  riding 
forth  in  conquering  power  and  majesty;  the  last  exhibits  all 
prostrate  and  silent  before  Him.  The  different  seals,  there- 
fore unfold  the  different  stages  of  this  mighty  achievement; 
and  as  they  successively  open,  each  of  the  living  creatures  in 
turn  calls  aloud  on  the  symbolic  agency  to  go  forth  on  its 
course.  That  agency,  in  its  fundamental  character,  repre- 
sents the  judicial  energy  and  procedure  of  God  toward  the 


232  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRTPTUBE. 

sinfulness  of  the  world,  for  the  purpose  of  subduing  it  to 
Himself,  of  establishing  righteousness  and  truth  among  men, 
and  bringing  the  actual  state  of  things  on  earth  into  con- 
formity with  what  is  ideally  right  and  good.  Who,  then, 
might  more  fitly  urge  forward  and  herald  such  a  work,  than 
the  ideal  creatures  in  which  earthly  forms  of  being  appeared 
replete  with  the  life  of  God,  and  in  closest  contact  with  His 
throne  ?  Such  might  be  said  to  be  their  special  interest  and 
business.  And  hence,  as  there  were  only  four  of  them  in  the 
vision  (with  some  reference,  perhaps,  to  the  four  corners  of 
the  earth),1  one  merely  for  each  of  the  first  four  seals  of  the 
book,  the  remaining  symbols  of  this  part  of  the  Apocalyptic 
imagery  were  thrown  into  forms  which  did  not  properly 
admit  of  any  such  proclamation  being  uttered  in  connection 
with  them." 

We  can  discern  the  same  leading  characteristics  in  the 
further  use  made  of  the  cherubic  imagery  in  the  Apocalypse. 
They  are  represented  as  ceaselessly  proclaiming,  "  Holy,  holy, 
holy,  Lord  God  Almighty,  which  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come," 
thereby  showing  it  to  be  their  calling  to  make  known  the 
absolute  holiness  of  God,  as  infinitely  removed  from  the  moral 
disorders  and  sorrows  of  creation.  In  their  ascriptions  of 
praise,  too,  they  are  represented  not  only  as  giving  honor 
arid  glorv,  but  also  thanks,  to  Him  that  sitteth  on  the  throne, 
and  as  joining  with  the  elders  in  the  new  song  that  was  sung 
to  the  Lamb  for  the  benefits  of  His  salvation."  So  that  they 
plainly  stand  related  to  the  redemptive  as  well  as  the  creative 
work  of  God.  And  yet  in  all,  from  first  to  last,  only  ideal 
representatives  of  what  pertains  to  God's  kingdom  on  earth, 
not  as  substantive  existences  themselves  possessing  it.  They 
belong  to  the  imagery  of  faith,  not  to  her  abiding  realities. 
And  so,  when  the  ultimate  things  of  redemption  come,  their 
place  is  no  more  found.  They  hold  out  the  lamp  of  hope  to 
fallen  man  through  the  wilderness  of  life,  pointing  his  expec- 

>  We  say  only  perhaps;  for  though  Hengstenberg  and  others  lay  much 
stress  upon  the  number  /our,  as  the  signature  of  the  earth,  yet  there  being 
only  two  in  the  tabernacle,  would  seem  to  indicate  that  nothing  material 
depends  on  the  number.  We  think  that  the  increase  from  the  original  two 
to  four  may,  with  more  semblance  of  truth,  be  accounted  for  historically. 
When  the  temple  was  built,  two  cherubim  of  immense  proportions  wore  put 
into  the  Most  Holy  Place,  and  under  these  were  placed  the  ark  with  its  an- 
cient and  smaller  cherubim :  so  that  there  were  henceforth  actually  four  cher- 
ubim over  the  ark.  And  as  the  form  of  Ezekiel's  vision,  in  its  leading  ele- 
ments, was  evidently  taken  from  the  temple,  and  John's  again  from  that,  it 
seems  quite  natural  to  account  for  the  four  in  this  way. 

2  Compare  what  IP  said  on  this  subject  in  Prophecy  in  Its  Distinctive  Nature, 
•to.,  pp  404,  405. 

»  Bev.  IT.  9,  T.  a 


THE  CHERUBIM.  233 

tations  to  the  better  country.  But  when  this  country  breaks 
upon  our  view — when  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth 
supplant  the  old,  then  also  the  ideal  gives  way  to  the  real. 
We  see  another  paradise,  with  its  river  and  tree  of  life,  and 
a  present  God,  and  a  presiding  Saviour,  and  holy  angels,  and 
a  countless  multitude  of  redeemed  spirits  rejoicing  in  the  ful- 
ness of  blessing  and  glory  provided  for  them ;  but  no  sight  is 
anywhere  to  be  seen  of  the  cherubim  of  glory.  They  have 
fulfilled  the  end  of  their  temporary  existence ;  and  when  no 
longer  needed,  they  vanish  like  the  guiding  stars  of  night 
before  the  bright  sunshine  of  eternal  day. 

To  sum  up,  then :  The  cherubim  were  in  their  very  nature 
and  design  artificial  and  temporary  forms  of  being — uniting 
in  their  composite  structure  the  distinctive  features  of  the 
highest  kinds  of  creaturely  existence  on  earth — man's  first, 
and  chiefly.  They  were  set  up  for  representations  to  the  eye 
of  faith  of  earth's  living  creaturehood,  and  more  especially 
of  its  rational  and  immortal,  though  fallen  head,  with  refer- 
ence to  the  better  hopes  and  destiny  in  prospect.  From  the 
very  first  they  gave  promise  of  a  restored  condition  to  the 
fallen ;  and  by  the  use  afterwards  made  of  them,  the  light 
became  clearer  and  more  distinct.  By  their  designations, 
the  positions  assigned  them,  the  actions  from  time  to  time 
ascribed  to  them,  as  well  as  their  own  peculiar  structure,  it 
was  intimated  that  the  good  in  prospect  should  be  secured, 
not  at  the  expense  of,  but  in  perfect  consistence  with,  the 
claims  of  God's  righteousness;  that  restoration  to  the  holi- 
ness must  precede  restoration  to  the  blessedness  of  life;  and 
that  only  by  being  made  capable  of  dwelling  beside  the  pres- 
ence of  the  only  Wise  and  Good,  could  man  hope  to  have  his 
portion  of  felicity  recovered.  But  all  this,  they  further  be- 
tokened, it  was  in  God's  purpose  to  have  accomplished ;  and 
so  to  do  it,  as  at  the  same  time  to  raise  humanity  to  a  higher 
than  its  original  destination — in  its  standing  nearer  to  God, 
and  with  its  powers  of  life  and  capacities  of  working  vari- 
ously ennobled. 

Before  passing  from  the  subject  of  the  cherubim,  we  must 
briefly  notice  some  of  the  leading  views  that  have  been  enter- 
tained by  others  respecting  them.  These  will  be  found  to  rest 
upon  a  part  merely  of  the  representations  of  Scripture  to  the 
exclusion  of  others,  and  most  commonly  to  a  neglect  of  what 
we  hold  it  to  be  of  especial  moment  to  keep  prominently  in 
view — the  historical  use  of  the  cherubim  of  Scripture,  'f  hat 
this  may  justly  be  affirmed  of  an  opinion  once  very  prevalent 
both  among  Jews  and  Christians,  and  not  without  its  occa- 


234  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOEIPTUBE. 

sional  advocates  still,1  which  held  them  to  be  celestial  exist- 
ences, or  more  specifically  angels,  will  readily  be  understood. 
For  the  component  parts  of  the  cherubic  appearance  being  all 
derived  from  the  forms  of  being  which  have  their  local  habi- 
tation on  earth,  it  is  terrestrial,  as  contradistinguished  from 
celestial,  objects  which  we  are  necessitated  to  think  of.  And 
their  original  position  at  the  east  of  Eden  would  have  been 
inexplicable,  as  connected  with  a  religion  of  hope,  if  celestial 
and  not  earthly  natures  had  been  represented  in  them.  The 
natural  conclusion  in  that  case  must  have  been,  that  the  way 
of  life  was  finally  lost  for  man.  In  the  Apocalypse,  too,  they 
are  expressly  distinguished  from  the  angels;  and  in  ch.  v. 
the  living  creatures  and  the  elders  form  one  distinct  chorus 
(ver.  8),  while  the  angels  form  another  (ver.  11).  There  is 
more  of  verisimilitude  in  another  and  at  present  more  preva- 
lent opinion,  that  the  cherubim  represent  the  Church  of  the 
redeemed.  This  opinion  has  often  been  propounded,  and 
quite  recently  has  been  set  forth  in  a  separate  work  on  the 
cherubim.1  It  evidently  fails,  however,  to  account  satisfac- 
torily for  their  peculiar  structure,  and  is  of  a  too  concrete  and 
specific  character  to  have  been  represented  by  such  ideal  and 
shifting  formations  as  the  cherubim  of  Scripture.  These  are 
more  naturally  conceived  to  have  had  to  do  with  natures  than 
with  rjersons.  Besides,  it  is  plainly  inconsistent  with  the  place 
occupied  by  the  cherubim  in  the  Apocalyptic  vision,  where 
the  four  and  twenty  crowned  elders  obviously  represent  the 
Church  of  the  redeemed.  To  ascribe  the  same  office  to  the 
cherubim  would  be  to  suppose  a  double  and  essentially  differ- 
ent representation  of  the  same  object.  To  avoid  this  objec- 
tion, Vitringa*  modified  the  idea  so  as  to  make  the  cherubim 
in  the  Revelation  (for  he  supposed  those  mentioned  in  Gen. 
iii.  24  to  have  been  angels)  the  representatives  of  such  as 
hold  stations  of  eminence  in  the  Church, — evangelists  and 
ministers, — as  the  elders  were  of  the  general  body  of  be- 
lievers. But  it  is  an  entirely  arbitrary  notion,  and  destitute 
of  support  in  the  general  representations  of  Scripture;  as, 
indeed,  is  virtually  admitted  by  the  learned  author,  in  so 
peculiarly  connecting  it  with  the  vision  of  St.  John.  An 
opinion  which  finds  some  color  of  support  only  in  a  single 
passage,  and  loses  all  appearance  of  probability  when  applied 
to  others,  is  self-confuted. 

1  Elliott's  Hbrce  Apoc.  Introd. ;  partially  adopted  also,  and  es 
gard  to  the  cherubim  of  Eden,  by  Mr.  Mills  in  a  little  work  on 
ogy,  p.  136. 

2  Doctrine  of  the  Cherubim,  by  George  Smith,  P.  A.  8. 
»  Obs.  Sac.  i.  846. 


THE  CHEBTIBIM.  235 

It  was  the  opinion  of  Michaelis — an  opinion  bearing  a  vivid 
impress  of  the  general  character  of  his  mind — that  the  cheru- 
bim were  a  sort  of  "  thunder  horses  "  of  Jehovah,  somewhat 
similar  to  the  horses  of  Jupiter  among  the  Greeks.  This 
idea  has  so  much  of  a  heathen  aspect,  and  so  little  to  give 
it  even  an  apparent  countenance  in  Scripture,  that  no  further 
notice  need  be  taken  of  it.  More  acceptance  on  the  Continent 
has  been  found  for  the  view  of  Herder,  who  regards  the  cher- 
ubim as  originally  feigned  monsters,  like  the  dragons  or  grif- 
fins, which  were  the  fabled  guardians  among  the  ancients  of 
certain  precious  treasures.  Hence  he  thinks  the  cherubim 
are  represented  as  first  of  all  appointed  to  keep  watch  at  the 
closed  gates  of  paradise ;  and  for  the  same  reason  were  after- 
wards placed  by  Moses  in  the  presence-chamber  of  God,  which 
the  people  generally  were  not  permitted  to  enter.  Latterly, 
however,  he  admits  they  were  differently  employed,  but  more 
after  a  poetical  fashion,  and  as  creatures  of  the  imagination. 
This  admission  obviously  implies  that  the  view  will  not  stand 
an  examination  with  all  the  passages  of  Scripture  bearing  on 
the  subject.  Indeed,  we  shall  not  be  far  wrong  if  we  say  that 
it  can  stand  an  examination  with  none  of  them.  The  cheru- 
bim were  not  set  up  even  in  Eden  as  formidable  monsters  to 
fray  sinful  man  from  approaching  it.  They  were  not  needed 
for  such  a  purpose,  as  this  was  sufficiently  effected  by  the 
flaming  sword.  Nor  were  they  placed  at  the  door,  or  about 
the  threshold  of  the  sanctuary,  to  guard  its  sanctity,  as  on  that 
hypothesis  they  should  have  been,  but  formed  a  part  of  the 
furniture  of  its  innermost  region.  And  the  later  notices  of 
the  cherubim  in  Scripture,  which  confessedly  present  them 
in  a  different  light,  are  not  by  any  means  independent  and 
arbitrary  representations:  they  have  a  close  affinity,  as  we 
have  seen,  with  the  earlier  statements ;  and  we  can  not  doubt 
that  the  same  fundamental  character  is  to  be  found  in  all 
the  representations. 

Spencer's  idea  of  the  cherubim  was  of  a  piece  with  his 
views  generally  of  the  institutions  of  Moses:  they  were  of 
Egyptian  origin,  and  were  formed  in  imitation  of  those  mon- 
strous compounds  which  played  so  prominent  a  part  in  the 
sensuous  worship  of  that  cradle  of  superstition  and  idolatry. 
Such  composite  forms,  however,  were  by  no  means  so  peculiar 
to  Egypt  as  Spencer  represents.  They  were  common  to  hea- 
then antiquity,  and  are  even  understood  to  have  been  more 
frequently  used  in  the  East  than  in  Egypt.  Nor  is  it  un- 
worthy of  notice,  that  of  all  the  monstrous  combinations 
which  are  mentioned  in  ancient  writings,  and  which  the 
more  successful  investigations  of  later  times  have  brought  to 


236  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

light  from  the  remains  of  Egyptian  idolatry,  not  one  has  an 
exact  resemblance  to  the  cherub:  the  four  creature  forms 
combined  in  it  seem  never  to  have  been  so  combined  in 
Egypt;  and  the  only  thing  approaching  to  it  yet  discovered 
is  to  be  found  in  India. 

It  is  quite  gratuitous,  therefore,  to  assert  that  the  cherubim 
were  of  Egyptian  origin.  But  even  if  similar  forms  had  been 
found  there,  it  would  not  have  settled  the  question,  either  as 
to  the  proper  origin  or  the  real  nature  of  the  cherubim.  If 
they  were  placed  in  Eden  after  the  fall,  they  had  a  known 
character  and  habitation  in  the  world  many  centuries  before 
Egypt  had  a  being.  And  then,  whatever  composite  images 
might  be  found  in  Egypt  or  other  idolatrous  nations,  these,  in 
accordance  with  the  whole  character  of  heathen  idolatry, 
which  was  essentially  the  deification  of  nature,  must  have 
been  representations  of  the  Godhead  itself,  as  symbolized  by 
the  objects  of  nature;  while  the  cherubim  are  uniformly  rep- 
resented as  separate  from  God,  and  as  ministers  of  righteous- 
ness before  Him.  So  well  was  this  understood  among  the 
Israelites,  that  even  in  the  most  idolatrous  periods  of  their 
history,  the  cherubim  never  appear  among  the  instruments 
of  their  false  worship.  This  separate  and  creaturely  charac- 
ter of  the  cherubim  is  also  fatal  to  the  opinion  of  those  who 
regard  them  as  "  emblematical  of  the  ever-blessed  Trinity  in 
covenant  to  redeem  man,"  which  is,  besides,  utterly  at  va- 
riance with  the  position  of  the  cherubim  in  the  temple ;  for 
how  could  God  be  said  to  dwell  between  the  ever-blessed 
Trinity?1  And  the  same  objections  apply  to  another  opinion 
closely  related  to  this,  according  to  whicn  the  cherubim  rep- 
resent, not  the  Godhead  personally,  but  the  attributes  and 
perfections  of  God;  are  held  to  be  symbolical  personifications 
of  these  as  manifested  in  God's  works  and  ways.  This  view 
has  been  adopted  with  various  modifications  by  persons  of 
great  name,  and  of  very  different  tendencies — such  as  Philo, 
Grotius,  Bochart,  Rosenmuller,  De  Wette;  but  it  is  not  sup- 
ported either  by  the  fundamental  nature  of  the  cherubim  or 
by  their  historical  use.  We  can  not  perceive,  indeed,  how  the 
cherubim  could  really  have  been  regarded  as  symbols  of  the 
divine  perfections,  or  personifications  of  the  divine  attributes, 

1  It  is  Parkhurst  and  the  Hutchinsonian  school,  who  are  the  patrons  of 
this  ridiculous  notion.  Horsley  makes  a  most  edifying  improvement  upon  it, 
with  reference  to  modern  times:  "The  cherub  was  a  compound  figure,  the 
calf  (of  Jeroboam)  single.  Jeroboam  therefore,  and  his  subjects,  were  Uni- 
tarians!"— (Works,  voL  viii.  241).  He  forgot,  apparently,  that  there  were 
four  parts  in  the  cherub;  so  that  not  a  trinity,  but  a  quaternity,  would  have 
been  the  proper  correlative  under  the  GospeL 


THE  CHERUBIM.  237 

without  falling  under  the  ban  of  the  second  commandment. 
It  would  surely  have  been  an  incongruity  to  have  forbidden, 
in  the  strongest  terms  and  with  the  severest  penalties,  the 
making  of  any  likeness  of  God,  and  at  the  same  time  to  have 
set  up  certain  symbolical  images  of  His  perfections  in  the 
very  region  of  His  presence,  and  in  immediate  contact  with 
His  throne.  No  corporeal  representation  could  consistently 
be  admitted  there  of  any  thing  but  what  directly  pointed  to 
creaturely  existences,  and  their  relations  and  interests.  And 
the  nearest  possible  connection  with  God  which  we  can  con- 
ceive the  cnerubim  to  have  been  intended  to  hold,  was  that 
of  shadowing  forth  how  the  creatures  of  His  hand,  and  (orig- 
inally) the  bearers  of  His  image  on  earth,  might  become  so 
replenished  with  His  spirit  of  holiness  as  to  be,  in  a  manner, 
the  shrines  of  His  indwelling  and  gracious  presence. 

Bahr,  in  his  Symbolik,  approaches  more  nearly  to  this  view 
than  any  of  the  preceding  ones,  and  theoretically  avoids  the 
more  special  objection  we  have  urged  against  it ;  but  it  is  by  a 
philosophical  refinement  too  delicate,  especially  without  some 
accompanying  explanation,  to  catch  the  apprehension  of  a 
comparatively  unlearned  and  sensuous  people.  The  cheru- 
bim, he  conceives,  were  images  of  the  creation  in  its  highest 
parts — combining  in  a  concentrated  shape  the  most  perfect 
ibrms  of  creature  life  on  ea"rth,  and,  as  such,  serving  as  rep- 
resentatives of  all  creation.  But  the  powers  of  life  in  crea- 
tion are  the  signs  and  witnesses  of  those  which,  without 
limit  or  imperfection,  are  in  God;  and  so  the  relative  perfec- 
tion of  life  exhibited  in  the  cherubim  symbolized  the  absolute 
perfection  of  life  that  is  in  God — His  Omniscience,  His  peer- 
less majesty,  His  creative  power,  His  unerring  wisdom.  The 
cherub  was  not  an  image  of  the  Creator,  but  it  was  an  image 
of  the  Creator's  manifested  glory.  We  repeat,  this  is  far  too 
refined  and  shadowy  a  distinction  to  lie  at  the  base  of  a 
popular  religion,  and  to  serve  for  instruction  to  a  people 
surrounded  on  every  hand  by  the  gross  forms  and  dense 
atmosphere  of  idolatry.  It  could  scarcely  have  failed,  in  the 
circumstances,  to  lead  to  the  worship  of  the  cherubim,  as, 
reflectively  at  least,  the  worthiest  representations  of  God 
which  could  be  conceived  by  men  on  earth.  But  if  this  evil 
could  have  been  obviated,  which  we  can  only  think  of  as  an 
inseparable  consequence,  there  is  another  and  still  stronger 
attaching  to  the  view,  which  we  may  call  an  inseparable  in- 
gredient. For  if  the  cherubim  were  representatives  of  created 
life,  and  thence  factitious  witnesses  of  the  Creator's  glory ;  if 
such  were  the  sum  and  substance  of  what  was  represented 
in  them,  then  it  was  after  all  but  a  symbol  of  things  in  na- 


238  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTU11E. 

ture ;  and,  unlike  all  the  other  symbols  in  the  religion  of  the 
Old  Testament,  it  must  have  borne  no  respect  to  God'e  work, 
and  character,  and  purposes  of  grace.  That  religion  was 
one  essentially  adapted  to  the  condition,  the  necessities,  and 
desires  of  fallen  man ;  and  the  symbolical  forms  and  institu- 
tions belonging  to  it  bear  respect  to  God's  nature  and  deal- 
ings, not  so  much  in  connection  with  the  gifts  and  properties 
of  creation,  as  with  the  principles  of  righteousness  and  the 
hopes  of  salvation.  If  the  cherubim  are  held  to  be  symboli- 
cal only  of  what  is  seen  of  God  in  nature,  they  stand  apart 
from  this  properly  religious  province:  they  have  no  real 
adaptation  to  the  circumstances  of  a  fallen  world;  they  have 
to  do  simply  with  creative,  not  with  redemptive,  manifesta- 
tions of  God;  and  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  the  religion 
of  the  Old  Testament  would  after  all  have  been,  like  the 
different  forms  of  heathenism,  a  mere  nature  religion.  No 
further  proof  surely  is  needed  of  the  falseness  of  the  view 
in  question ;  for,  in  a  scheme  of  worship  so  wonderfully  com- 
pact, and  skilfully  arranged  toward  a  particular  end,  the 
supposition  of  a  heterogeneous  element  at  the  centre  is  not 
to  be  entertained. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  view  of  Hengstenberg, 
and  shown  its  incompatibility  to  some  extent  with  the  script- 
ural representations.  His  opinions  upon  this  subject,  indeed, 
appear  to  have  been  somewhat  fluctuating.  In  one  of  his 
earlier  productions,  his  work  on  the  Pentateuch,  he  expresses 
his  concurrence  with  Bahr,  and  even  goes  so  far  as  to  say, 
that  he  regarded  Bahr's  treatment  of  the  cherubim  as  the 
most  successful  part  of  the  Symbdik.  Then  in  his  Egypt  and 
the  Books  of  Moses,  he  gave  utterance  to  an  opinion  at  vari- 
ance with  the  radical  idea  of  Bahr,  that  the  cherubim  had  a 
connection,  both  in  nature  and  origin,  with  the  sphinxes  of 
Egypt.  And  in  his  work  on  the  Revelation,  he  expressly 
opposes  Bahr's  view,  and  holds  that  the  living  forms  in  the 
cherubim  were  merely  the  representation  of  all  that  is  living 
on  the  earth.  But  representing  the  higher  things  on  earth, 
they  also  naturally  serve  as  representations  of  the  earth  itself; 
and  God's  appearing  enthroned  above  the  cherubim  symbol- 
ized the  truth  that  He  is  the  God  of  the  whole  earth,  and  has 
every  thing  belonging  to  it,  matter  and  mind,  subject  to  His 
control.  As  mentioned  before,  this  view,  if  correct,  would 
have  required  the  position  of  the  cherubim  to  be  always  very 
distinctly  and  manifestly  below  the  throne  of  God ;  which,  how- 
ever, it  does  not  appear  to  have  been,  except  when  the  mani- 
festation described  was  primarily  for  judgment.  It  leaves 
unexplained  also  the  prominence  given  in  the  cherubic  delin- 


THE  CHEBTJBIM.  239 

cations  to  the  form  and  likeness  of  man,  and  the  circum- 
stance that  the  cherubim  should,  in  the  Revelation,  be  nearer 
to  the  throne  than  the  elders — placing,  according  to  that  view, 
the  creation,  merely  as  such,  nearer  than  the  Church.  But 
the  representation  errs,  rather  as  giving  a  partial  and  limited 
view  of  the  truth,  than  maintaining  what  is  absolutely  con- 
trary to  it.  It  approaches,  in  our  judgment,  much  nearer  to 
the  right  view  than  that  more  recently  set  forth  by  Delitzsch, 
who  considers  the  cherubim  as  simply  the  bearers  of  Jeho- 
vah's chariot,  and  as  having  been  placed  originally  at  the 
eastern  gate  of  paradise,  as  if  to  carry  Him  aloft  to  heaven 
for  the  execution  of  judgment,  should  mankind  proceed  further 
in  the  course  of  iniquity.  A  conceivable  notion  certainly !  but 
leaving  rather  too  much  to  the  imagination  for  so  early  an 
age,  and  scarcely  taking  the  form  best  fitted  for  working 
either  on  men's  rears  or  hopes !  In  the  second  edition  of  his 
work,  published  since  the  preceding  was  written,  the  learned 
author  has  somewhat  modified  his  view  of  the  cherubim.  He 
still  regards  them  as  the  bearers  of  Jehovah's  chariot;  but 
lays  stress  chiefly  upon  the  general  idea  that  they  appeared  as 
the  jealous  guardians  of  Jehovah's  presence  and  glory — there- 
fore, watchers  by  way  of  eminence.  As  this  view  has  been 
already  noticed,  it  does  not  call  for  any  fresh  consideration. 


CHAPTER  FOURTH. 

SACRIFICIAL  WORSHIP. 

THE  symbols  to  which  our  attention  has  hitherto  been  di- 
rected, were  simply  ordinances  of  teaching.  They  spake  in 
language  not  to  be  mistaken  of  the  righteous  character  of 
God,  oi  the  evil  of  sin,  of  the  moral  and  physical  ruin  it  had 
brought  upon  the  world,  of  a  purpose  of  grace  and  a  prospect 
of  recovery;  but  they  did  no  more.  There  were  no  rites  of 
service  associated  with  them ;  nor  of  themselves  did  they  call 
men  to  embody  in  any  outward  action  the  knowledge  and 
principles  they  were  the  means  of  imparting.  But  religion 
must  nave  its  active  services  as  well  as  its  teaching  ordi- 
nances. The  one  furnish  light  and  direction,  only  that  the 
other  may  be  intelligently  performed.  And  a  symbolical 
religion,  if  it  could  even  be  said  to  exist,  could  certainly  not 
have  perpetuated  itself,  or  kept  alive  the  knowledge  of  divine 
truth  in  the  world,  without  the  regular  employment  of  one  or 
more  symbolical  institutions  fitted  for  the  suitable  expression 
of  religious  ideas  and  feelings.  Now  the  only  thing  of  this 
description  which  makes  its  appearance  in  the  earlier  periods 
of  the  world's  history,  and  which  continued  to  hold,  through 
all  the  after  stages  of  symbolical  worship,  the  paramount 
place,  is  the  rite  of  sacrifice. 

We  are  not  told,  however,  of  the  actual  institution  of  this 
rite  in  immediate  connection  with  the  fall ;  and  the  silence  of 
inspired  history  regarding  it  till  Cain  and  Abel  had  reached 
the  season  of  manhood,  and  the  mention  of  it  then  simply  as  a 
matter  of  fact  in  the  narrative  of  their  lives,  has  given  rise  to 
much  disputation  concerning  the  origin  of  sacrifice — whether 
it  was  of  divine  appointment,  or  of  human  invention  ?  And  if 
the  latter,  to  what  circumstances  in  man's  condition,  or  to 
what  views  and  feelings  naturally  arising  in  his  mind,  might 
it  owe  its  existence  ?  In  the  investigation  of  these  questions, 
a  line  of  inquiry  has  not  unfrequently  been  pursued  by  theo- 
logians, more  befitting  the  position  of  philosophical  reasonere 


SACKIFICIAL  WOKSHIP.  241 

than  of  Christian  divines.  The  solution  has  been  sought  for 
chiefly  in  the  general  attributes  of  human  nature,  and  the 
practices  of  a  remote  and  semi-barbarous  heathenism,  as  if 
Scripture  were  entirely  silent  upon  the  subject  till  we  come 
far  down  the  stream  of  time.  Discarding  such  a  mode  of 
conducting  the  investigation,  and  looking  to  the  notices  of 
Scripture  for  our  only  certain  light  upon  the  subject,  we  hope, 
without  material  difficulty,  to  find  our  way  to  conclusions  on 
the  leading  points  connected  with  it,  which  may  commend 
themselves  as  fairly  drawn  and  reasonably  grounded. 

1.  In  regard,  first  of  all,  to  the  divine  authority  and  accept- 
able nature  of  worship  by  sacrifice, — which  is  often  mixed  up 
with  the  consideration  of  its  origin, — Scripture  leaves  very 
little  room  for  controversy.  The  only  debatable  ground,  as 
concerns  this  aspect  of  the  matter,  respects  that  very  limited 
period  of  time  which  stretches  from  the  fall  of  Adam  to  the 
offerings  of  Cain  and  Abel.  From  this  latter  period, — verg- 
ing, too,  on  the  very  commencement  of  the  world's  history, — 
we  are  expressly  informed  that  sacrifice  of  one  kind  had  a 
recognized  place  in  the  worship  of  God,  and  met  with  His 
acceptance.  Not  only  did  Abel  appear  before  God  with  a 
sacrificial  offering,  but  by  a  visible  token  of  approval — con- 
veyed in  all  probability  through  some  action  of  the  cherubim 
or  the  flaming  sword,  near  which,  as  the  seat  of  the  manifested 
presence  of  God,  the  service  would  naturally  be  performed — 
the  seal  was  given  of  the  divine  acceptance  and  blessing. 
Thenceforth,  at  least,  sacrifice  presented  after  the  manner  of 
Abel's  'might  be  regarded  as  of  divine  authority.  It  bore 
distinctly  impressed  upon  it  the  warrant  and  approbation  of 
Heaven;  and  whatever  uncertainty  might  hang  around  it 
during  the  brief  space  which  intervened  between  the  fall  and 
the  time  of  Abel's  accepted  offering,  it  was  from  that  time 
determined  to  be  a  mode  of  worship  with  which  God  was 
well  pleased.  We  might  rather  say  the  mode  of  worship ;  for 
sacrifice,  accompanied,  it  is  probable,  with  some  words  of 
prayer,  is  the  only  stated  act  of  worship  by  which  believers 
in  the  earlier  ages  appear  to  have  given  more  formal  ex- 
pression to  their  faith  and  hope  in  God.  When  it  is  said  of 
the  times  of  Enos,  the  grandson  of  Adam  in  the  pious  line 
of  Seth,  that  "  then  men  began  to  call  upon  the  name  of  the 
Lord,"  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  they  did  so  after  the 
example  of  Abel,  by  the  presentation  of  sacrifice — only  as 
profiting  by  the  fatal  result  of  his  personal  dispute  with  Cain, 
m  a  more  public  and  regularly  concerted  manner.  It  appears 
to  have  been  then  agreed  among  the  worshippers  of  Jehovah 
what  offerings  to  present,  and  how  to  do  so ;  as,  in  later  times, 
VOL.  i. — 16 


242  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SGKTPTTJBR 

it  is  frequently  reported  of  Abraham  and  his  family,  in  con- 
nection with  their  naving  built  an  altar,  that  they  then  "called 
upon  the  name  of  the  Lord." 1  That  sacrifice  held  the  same 
place  in  the  instituted  worship  of  God  after  the  deluge  which 
it  had  done  before,  we  learn,  first  of  all,  from  the  case  of  Noah 
— the  connecting  link  between  the  old  and  new  worlds — who 
no  sooner  left  the  ark  than  he  built  an  altar  to  the  Lord,  and 
offered  burnt-offerings  of  every  clean  beast  and  fowl,  from 
which  the  Lord  is  said  to  have  smelled  a  sweet  savor.  In  the 
delineation  given  of  the  earlier  patriarchal  times  in  the  Book 
of  Job,  we  find  him  not  only  spoken  of  as  exhibiting  his  piety 
in  the  stated  presentation  of  burnt-offerings,  but  also  as  ex- 
pressly required  by  God  to  make  sacrifice  for  the  atonement 
of  his  friends,  who  had  sinned  with  their  lips  in  speaking 
what  was  not  right.  And  as  we  have  undoubted  testimonies 
respecting  the  acceptable  character  of  the  worship  performed 
by  Abraham  and  his  chosen  seed,  so  we  learn  that  in  this 
worship  sacrificial  offerings  played  the  principal  part,  and 
were  even  sometimes  directly  enjoined  by  God.1 

The  very  latest  of  these  notices  in  sacred  history  carry  us 
up  to  a  period  far  beyond  that  to  which  the  authentic  annals 
01  any  heathen  kingdom  reach,  while  the  earliest  refer  to 
what  occurred  only  a  few  years  subsequent  to  the  fall  From 
the  time  of  Abel,  then,  downwards  through  the  whole  course 
of  antediluvian  and  patriarchal  history,  it  appears  that  the 
regular  and  formal  worship  of  God  mainly  consisted  in  the 
ottering  of  sacrifice,  and  that  this  was  not  rendered  by  a  sort 
of  religious  venture  on  the  part  of  the  worshippers,  but  with 
the  known  sanction,  and  virtual,  if  not  explicit,  appointment 
of  God.  As  regards  the  right  of  men  to  draw  near  to  God 
with  such  offerings,  and  their  hope  of  acceptance  at  His 
hands,  no  shadow  of  doubt  can  fairly  be  said  to  rest  upon 
any  portion  of  the  field  of  inquiry,  except  what  may  relate  to 
the  worship  of  the  parents  themselves  of  the  human  family. 

2.  It  is  well  to  keep  in  view  the  clear  and  satisfactory  de- 
liverance we  obtain  on  this  branch  of  the  subject.  And  if  we 
could  ascertain  definitely  what  were  the  views  arid  feelings 
expressed  by  the  worshippers  in  the  kind  of  sacrifice  which 
was  accepted  by  God,  the  question  of  its  precise  origin  would 
be  of  little  moment ;  since,  so  recently  after  the  institution  of 
the  rite,  we  have  unequivocal  evidence  of  its  being  divinely 
owned  and  approved,  as  actually  offered.  But  it  is  here  that 
the  main  difficulty  presents  itself,  as  it  is  only  indirectly  we 
can  gather  the  precise  objects  for  which  the  primitive  race  of 

1  Gen.  rii  8,  xiii.  4,  xxvi,  25. 

«  (Jen.  TV.  9,  10,  17,  xiii.  2,  13,  xrcr.  1,  etc. 


SACEIFICIAL  WOBSHIP.  243 

worshippers  came  before  God  with  sacrificial  offerings.  The 
question  of  their  origin  still  is  of  moment  for  ascertaining 
this,  and  at  the  same  time  for  determining  the  virtue  pos- 
sessed by  the  offerings  in  the  sight  of  God.  If  they  arose 
simply  in  the  devout  feelings  of  the  worshipper,  they  might 
have  been  accepted  by  God  as  a  natural  and  proper  form  for 
the  expression  of  these  feelings  but  they  could  not  have  borne 
any  typical  respect  to  the  higher  sacrifice  of  Christ,  as,  in  the 
things  of  redemption,  type  and  antitype  must  be  alike  of  God. 
And  on  this  point  we  now  proceed  to  remark  negatively,  that 
the  facts  already  noticed  concerning  the  first  appearance  and 
early  history  of  sacrifice,  present  insuperable  objections  to  all 
the  theories  which  have  sought,  on  simply  natural  grounds, 
to  account  for  its  human  origin. 

The  theory,  for  example,  which  has  received  the  suffrage 
of  many  learned  men,  both  in  this  country  and  on  the  Conti- 
nent,1 and  which  attempts  to  explain  the  rise  of  sacrifice  by  a 
reference  to  the  feelings  of  men  when  they  were  in  the  state 
of  rudest  barbarism,  capable  of  entertaining  only  the  most 
gross  and  carnal  ideas  of  God,  and  consequently  disposed  to 
deal  with  Him  much  as  they  would  have  done  with  a  fellow- 
creature,  whose  favor  they  desired  to  win  by  means  of  gifts, 
— this  theory  is  utterly  at  variance  with  the  earlier  notices  of 
sacrificial  worship.  It  is  founded  upon  a  sense  of  the  value 
of  property,  and  of  the  effect  wont  to  be  produced  by  gifts  of 
property  between  man  and  man,  which  could  not  have  been 
acquired  at  a  period  when  society  as  yet  consisted  only  of 
a  few  individuals,  and  these  the  members  of  a  single  family. 
And  whether  the  gift  were  viewed  in  the  light  of  a  compen- 
sation, a  bribe,  or  a  feast  (for  each  in  different  hands  has  nad 
its  share  in  giving  a  particular  shape  to  the  theory),  no  sac- 
rifice offered  with  such  a  view  could  have  met  with  the 
divine  favor  and  acceptance.  The  feeling  that  prompted  it 
must  in  that  case  have  been  degrading  to  God,  indeed  essen- 
tially idolatrous;  and  the  whole  history  of  patriarchal  worship, 
in  which  God  always  appears  to  look  so  benignly  on  the  offer- 
ings of  believing  worshippers,  reclaims  against  the  idea. 

Of  late,  however,  it  has  been  more  commonly  sought  to 
account  for  the  origin  of  sacrifice,  by  viewing  it  as  a  symbol- 
ical act,  such  as  might  not  unnaturally  have  suggested  itself 
to  men,  in  any  period  of  society,  from  the  feelings  or  practices 
with  which  their  personal  experience,  or  the  common  inter- 
course of  life,  made  them  familiar.  But  very  different  modes 
of  explaining  the  symbol  have  been  resorted  to  by  those  who 

>  Spencer,  de  Leg.  Heb.  lib.  iii.  c.  9.  So  also  substantially,  Priestley,  H. 
Taylor,  Michaelis,  Eoseruniiller,  Hofmann,  etc. 


244  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

concur  in  the  same  general  view  of  its  origination.  Omitting 
the  minor  shades  of  difference  which  have  arisen  from  an  un- 
due regard  being  had  to  distinctively  Mosaic  elements,  Sykes, 
in  his  Essay  on  Sacrifice,  raised  his  explanation  on  the  ground 
that  "eating  and  drinking  together  were  the  known  ordinary 
symbols  of  friendship,  and  were  the  usual  rites  of  engaging 
in  covenants  and  leagues."  And  in  this  way  some  plausible 
things  may  doubtless  be  said  of  sacrifice,  as  it  appeared  often 
in  the  later  ages  of  heathenism,  and  also  on  some  special  oc- 
casions among  the  covenant  people.  But  nothing  that  can 
seem  even  a  probable  account  is  thereby  given  of  the  offer- 
ings presented  by  believers  in  the  first  ages  of  the  world. 
For  it  is  against  all  reason  to  suppose  that  such  a  symbol  of 
friendship  should  then  have  been  in  current  use, — not  to  men- 
tion that  the  offerings  of  that  period  seem  to  have  been  pre- 
cisely of  the  class  in  which  no  part  was  eaten  by  the  worship- 
pers— holocausts.  Warburton  laid  the  ground  more  deeply, 
and  with  greater  show  of  probability,  when  he  endeavored 
to  trace  the  origin  of  sacrifice  to  the  ancient  mode  of  converse 
by  action,  to  aid  the  defects  and  imperfections  of  early  lan- 
guage,— this  being,  in  his  opinion,  sufficient  to  account  for 
men  being  led  to  adopt  such  a  mode  of  worship,  whether  the 
sacrifice  might  be  eucharistical,  propitiatory,  or  expiatory. 
Gratitude  for  good  bestowed,  he  conceives,  would  lead  the 
worshipper  to  present,  by  an  expressive  action,  the  first-fruits 
of  agriculture  or  pasturage — the  eucharistical  offering.  The 
desire  of  the  divine  favor  or  protection  in  the  business  of  life 
would,  in  like  manner,  dispose  him  to  dedicate  a  portion  of 
what  was  to  be  sown  or  propagated — the  propitiatory.  And 
for  sacrifices  of  an  expiatory  kind  the  sense  of  sin  would 
prompt  him  to  take  some  cnosen  animal,  precious  to  the  re- 
penting criminal  who  deprecated,  or  supposed  to  be  obnox- 
ious to  the  Deity  who  was  to  be  appeased,  and  slay  it  at  the 
altar,  in  an  action  which  in  all  languages  when  translated 
into  words,  speaks  to  this  purpose:  "I  confess  my  transgres- 
sions at  Thy  footstool,  O  my  God ;  and  with  the  deepest  con- 
trition implore  Thy  pardon,  confessing  that  I  deserve  the 
death  which  I  inflict  on  this  animal." 1  If  for  the  infliction 

1  Warburton's  Div.  Legation,  b.  ix.  c.  2.  Davispn  substantially  adopts  this 
view,  with  no  other  difference  than  that  he  conceives  it  unnecessary  to  make 
any  account  of  the  defects  and  imperfections  of  early  language  in  explaining 
the  origin  of  sacrifice;  but,  regarding  "representation  by  action  as  gratifying 
to  men  who  have  every  gift  of  eloquence,  and  as  "  singularly  suited  to  great 
purposes  of  solemnity  and  impression,"  he  thinks  "not  simple  adoration,  not 
the  naked  and  unadorned  oblations  of  the  tongue,  but  adoration  invested  in 
some  striking  and  significative  form,  and  conveyed  by  the  instrumentality  of 
material  tokens,  would  be  most  in  accordance  with  the  strong  energies  of  feel- 


SACRIFICIAL  WORSHIP.  246 

of  death,  whi  ;h  War  burton  here  represents  as  the  chief  feat- 
ure in  the  action  of  expiatory  sacrifice,  we  substitute  the 
pouring  out  of  the  blood,  or  simply  the  giving  away  of  the 
life  to  God,  there  is  no  material  difference  between  his  view 
of  the  origin  of  such  sacrifices  and  that  recently  propounded 
by  Bahr.  This  ingenious  and  learned  writer  rejects  the  idea 
of  sacrifice  having  come  from  any  supernatural  teaching  or 
special  appointment  of  God,  as  this  would  imply  that  man 
needed  extraneous  help  to  direct  him  whether  he  was  to  sac- 
rifice, or  how  he  was  to  do  it.  He  maintains,  that  "as  the 
idea  of  God,  and  its  necessary  expression,  was  not  something 
that  came  upon  humanity  from  without,  nothing  taught  it, 
but  something  immediate,  an  original  fact ;  so  also  is  sacrifice 
the  form  of  that  expression.  From  the  point  of  view  at  which 
we  are  wont  to  contemplate  things,  separating  the  divine  from 
the  natural,  the  spiritual  from  the  corporeal,  this  form  must 
indeed  always  present  a  strange  appearance.  But  if  we  throw 
ourselves  back  on  that  mode  of  contemplation  which  views 
the  divine  and  spiritual  as  inseparable  from  the  natural  and 
corporeal,  we  shall  find  nothing  so  far  out  of  the  way  in  man's 
feeling  himself  constrained  to  represent  the  internal  act  of  the 
giving  up  of  his  whole  life  and  being  to  the  Godhead — and 
in  that  all  religion  lives  and  moves — through  the  external 
giving  away  of  an  animal,  perhaps,  which  he  loved  as  him- 
self, or  on  which  he  himself  lived,  and  which  stood  in  the 
closest  connection  with  his  own  existence."1  Something  of  a 
like  nature  (though  exhibited  in  a  form  more  obviously  liable 
to  objection)  has  also  received  the  sanction  of  Tholuck,  who, 
in  the  Dissertation  on  Sacrifices  appended  to  his  Commentary 
on  Hebrews,  affirms  that  "  an  offering  was  originally  a  gift  to 
the  Deity — a  gift  by  which  man  strives  to  make  up  the  defi- 
ciency of  the  always  imperfect  surrender  of  himself  to  God." 
And  in  regard  especially  to  burnt-offerings,  he  says,  "  Both 
objects,  that  of  thanksgiving  and  of  propitiation,  were  connect- 
ed with  them:  on  the  one  hand,  gratitude  required  man  to 
surrender  what  was  external  as  well  as  internal  to  God ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  surrender  of  an  outward  good  was  con- 
sidered as  a  substitution,  a  propitiation  for  that  which  was 
still  deficient  in  the  internal  surrender."1  A  salvation,  it 
would  seem,  by  works  so  far;  and  only  where  these  failed,  a 
calling  in  of  extraneous  and  supplementary  resources! 

These  different  modes  of  explanation  are  manifestly  one  in 

ing,  and  the  insulated  condition  of  the  primitive  race." — (Inquiry  into  the  Ori- 
gin and  Intent  of  Sacrifice,  pp.  1 9,  20. ) 

'  BShr's  Symbolik,  b.  ii.  p.  272. 

*  Biblical  Cabinet,  voL  xixix.  p.  252. 


246  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKEPTTTKE. 

principle,  and  are  but  varying  aspects  of  the  same  fundamen- 
tal view.  In  each  form  it  lies  open  to  three  serious  objec- 
tions, which  together  appear  to  us  quite  conclusive  against 
it  1.  First,  the  analogy  of  God's  method  of  dealing  with  His 
Church  in  the  matter  of  divine  worship,  at  other  periods  in  her 
history,  is  opposed  to  the  simply  human  theory  in  any  of  its 
forms.  Certainly  at  no  other  era  did  God  leave  His  people 
altogether  to  their  own  inventions  for  the  discovery  of  an 
acceptable  mode  of  approaching  Him,  and  of  giving  expres- 
sion to  their  religious  feelings.  Some  indications  He  has 
always  given  of  what  in  this  respect  might  be  accordant  ^ 
with  His  mind,  and  suitable  to  the  position  which  His  wor- 
shippers occupied  in  His  kingdom.  The  extent  to  which 
this  directing  influence  was  carried,  formed  one  of  the  lead- 
ing characteristics  of  the  dispensation  brought  in  by  Moses ; 
the  whole  field  of  religious  worship  was  laid  under  divine 
prescription,  and  guarded  against  the  inventions  of  men. 
But  even  in  the  dispensation  of  the  Gospel,  which  is  distin- 
guished for  the  spirituality  of  its  nature,  and  its  compara- 
tive freedom  from  legal  enactments  and  the  observance  of 
outward  forms,  the  leading  ordinances  of  divine  worship  are 
indicated  with  sufficient  plainness,  and  what  has  no  founda- 
tion in  the  revealed  word  is  expressly  denounced  as  "  will- 
worship."  And  if  the  Church  of  the  New  Testament,  with  all 
her  advantages  of  a  completed  revelation,  a  son-like  freedom, 
and  an  unction  from  the  Holy  One,  that  is  said  to  "teach  her 
all  things,"  was  not  without  some  direction  and  control  in 
regard  to  the  proper  celebration  of  God's  service,  is  it  con- 
ceivable that  all  should  have  been  left  utterly  loose  and  inde- 
terminate when  men  were  still  in  the  very  infancy  of  a  fallen 
condition,  and  their  views  of  spiritual  truth  and  duty  only  in 
the  forming  ?  Where,  in  that  case,  would  have  been  God's 
jealousy  for  the  purity  of  His  worship  ?  And  where,  we  may 
also  ask,  His  compassion  toward  men  ?  He  had  disclosed  to 
them  purposes  of  grace,  and  awakened  in  their  bosoms  the 
hope  of  a  recovery  from  the  ruin  they  had  incurred ;  but  to  set 
them  adrift  without  even  pointing  to  any  ordinance  fitted  to 
meet  their  sense  of  sin,  and  re-assure  their  hearts  before  God, 
would  have  been  to  leave  the  exhibition  of  mercy  strangely 
defective  and  incomplete.  For  while  they  knew  they  had  to 
do  with  a  God  of  grace  and  forgiveness,  they  should  still 
have  been  in  painful  uncertainty  how  to  worship  and  serve 
Him,  so  as  to  get  a  personal  experience  of  His  blessing,  and 
how,  especially  when  conscience  of  sin  troubled  them  anew, 
they  might  have  the  uneasiness  allayed.  Never  surely  was 
the  tenderness  of  God  more  needed  to  point  the  way  to  what 


SACKIFICIAL  WOKSHIP.  247 

was  acceptable  and  right,  than  in  such  a  day  of  small  things 
for  the  children  of  hope.  And  if  it  had  not  been  shown,  the 
withholding  of  it  could  scarcely  seem  otherwise  than  an  ex- 
ception to  the  general  analogy  of  God's  dealings  with  men. 
2.  But,  secondly,  the  simply  human  theory  of  the  origin  of 
sacrifice  is  met  by  an  unresolved,  and,  on  that  supposition 
we  are  persuaded,  an  unresolvable  difficulty  in  respect  to  the 
nature  of  ancient  sacrifice.  For  as  the  earliest,  and  indeed 
the  only  recorded  mode  of  sacrifice  in  primitive  times,  among 
acceptable  worshippers  of  God,  consisted  in  the  offering  of 
slain  victims,  it  seems  impossible  that  this  particular  form 
of  sacrifice  should  have  been  fallen  upon  at  first,  without 
some  special  direction  from  above.  Let  the  symbolical  ac- 
tion be  viewed  in  either  of  the  shades  of  meaning  formerly 
described, — as  expressive  of  the  offerer's  deserved  death,  or  of 
the  surrender  of  his  life  to  God,  or  as  a  propitiatory  substitu- 
tion to  compensate  for  the  conscious  defect  of  such  surrender, 
— either  way,  how  could  he  have  imagined  that  the  devoting 
to  death  of  a  living  creature  of  God  should  have  been  the  ap- 
propriate mode  of  expressing  the  idea  ?  Death  is  so  familiar 
to  us,  as  regards  the  inferior  creation,  and  so  much  associ- 
ated with  the  means  of  our  support  and  comfort,  that  it  might 
seem  a  light  thing  to  put  an  animal  to  death  for  any  purpose 
connected  with  the  wants  or  even  the  convenience  of  men. 
But  the  first  members  of  the  human  family  were  in  different 
circumstances.  They  must  have  shrunk — unless  divinely  au- 
thorized— from  inflicting  death  on  any,  and  especially  on  the 
higher  forms  of  the  animal  creation ;  since  death,  in  so  far  as 
they  had  themselves  to  do  with  it,  was  the  peculiar  expres- 
sion of  God's  displeasure  on  account  of  sin.  All,  indeed,  be- 
longing to  that  creation  were  to  be  subject  to  them.  Their 
appointment  from  the  very  first  was  to  subdue  the  earth,  and 
render  every  thing  in  it  subservient  to  their  legitimate  use. 
But  this  use  did  not  originally  include  a  right  to  deprive 
animals  of  their  life  for  the  sake  of  food ;  the  grant  of  flesh 
for  that  end  was  only  given  at  the  deluge.  And  that  they 
should  yet  have  thought  it  proper  and  becoming  to  shed  the 
blood  of  animals  merely  to  express  a  religious  idea,  nay, 
should  have  regarded  that  as  so  emphatically  the  appropriate 
way  of  worshipping  God,  that  for  ages  it  seems  to  have  formed 
the  more  peculiar  medium  of  approach  to  Him,  can  never  be 
rationally  accounted  for  without  something  on  the  part  of 
God  directing  them  to  such  a  course.  3.  Finally,  the  theo- 
ries now  under  consideration  are  still  further  objectionable, 
in  that  they  are  confronted  by  a  specific  fact,  which  was 
evidently  recorded  for  the  express  purpose  of  throwing  light 


248  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKIPTUBE. 

on  the  original  worship  of  fallen  man,  and  with  which  their 
advocates  have  never  been  able  to  reconcile  them — the  fact 
of  Abel's  accepted  offering  from  the  flock,  as  contrasted  with 
the  rejection  of  Cain's  from  the  produce  of  the  field.1  The 
offerings  of  the  two  brothers  differed,  we  are  told  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  the  account  in  Genesis  implies 
as  much,  not  only  in  regard  to  the  outward  oblation — the 
one  being  a  creature  with  life,  the  other  without  it — but  also 
in  the  principle  which  moved  the  two  brothers  respectively 
to  present  them.  That  principle  in  Abel  was  faith ;  not  this, 
therefore,  but  something  else,  in  Cain.  And  as  it  was  faith 
which  both  rendered  Abel's  sacrifice  in  itself  more  excellent 
than  Cain's,  and  drew  down  upon  it  the  seal  of  Heaven's 
approval,  the  kind  of  faith  meant  must  obviously  have  been 
something  more  than  a  mere  general  belief  in  the  being  of 
God,  or  His  readiness  to  accept  an  offering  of  service  from 
the  hands  of  men.  Faith  in  that  sense  must  have  been  pos- 
sessed by  him  who  offered  amiss,  as  well  as  by  him  who 
offered  with  acceptance.  It  must  have  been  a  more  special 
exercise  of  faith  which  procured  the  acceptance  of  Abel — faith 
having  respect  not  simply  to  the  obligation  of  approaching 
God  with  some  kind  of  offering,  but  to  the  duty  of  doing  so 
with  a  sacrifice  like  that  actually  rendered,  01  the  flock  or 
the  herd.  But  whence  could  such  faith  have  come,  if  there 
had  not  been  a  testimony  or  manifestation  of  God  for  it  to 
rest  upon,  which  the  one  brother  believingly  apprehended, 
and  the  other  scornfully  slighted  ?  We  see  no  way  of  evad- 
ing this  conclusion,  without  misinterpreting  and  doing  vio- 
lence to  the  plain  import  of  the  account  of  Scripture  on  the 
subject.  Taking  this  in  its  obvious  and  natural  meaning, 
Cain  is  presented  to  our  view  as  a  child  of  nature,  not  of 
grace — as  one  obeying  the  impulse  and  direction  only  of 
reason,  and  rejecting  the  more  explicit  light  of  faith  as  to 
the  kind  of  service  he  presented  to  his  Maker.  His  oblation 
is  an  undoubted  specimen  of  what  man  could  do  in  his  fallen 
state  to  originate  proper  ideas  of  God,  and  give  fitting  expres- 
sion to  these  in  outward  acts  of  worship.  But  unhappily  for 
the  advocates  of  nature's  sufficiency  in  the  matter,  it  stands 
condemned  in  the  inspired  record  as  a  presumptuous  and 
disallowed  act  of  will-worship.  Abel,  on  the  other  hand, 
appears  as  one  who  through  grace  had  become  a  child  of 
faith,  and  by  faith  first  spiritually  discerning  the  mind  of 
God,  then  reverently  following  the  course  it  dictated,  by  pre- 
senting that  more  excellent  sacrifice  (itkeiora  Qvtiiav)  of  the 
firstlings  of  the  flock,  with  which  God  was  well  pleased. 
1  Gen.  i  v. ;  Heb.  ri.  4. 


SACRIFICIAL  WORSHIP.  249 

On  every  account,  therefore,  the  conclusion  seems  inevi- 
table, that  the  institution  of  sacrifice  must  have  been  essen- 
tially of  divine  origin;  for  though  we  can  not  appeal  to  any 
record  of  its  direct  appointment  by  God,  yet  there  are  notices 
concerning  sacrificial  worship  which  can  not  be  satisfactorily 
explained  on  the  supposition,  in  any  form,  of  its  merely  hu- 
man origin.  There  is  a  recorded  fact,  however,  which  touches 
the  very  borders  of  the  subject,  and  which,  we  may  readily 
perceive,  furnished  a  divine  foundation  on  which  a  sacrificial 
worship,  such  as  is  mentioned  in  Scripture,  might  be  built. 
It  is  the  fact  noticed  at  the  close  of  God's  interview  with  our 
first  parents  after  the  fall:  "And  unto  Adam  also,  and  to  his 
wife,  did  the  Lord  God  make  coats  of  skin,  and  clothed  them." 
The  painful  sense  of  nakedness  that  oppressed  them  after 
their  transgression,  was  the  natural  offspring  of  a  conscious- 
ness of  sin — an  instinctive  fear  lest  the  unveiled  body  should 
give  indication  of  the  evil  thoughts  and  dispositions  which 
now  lodged  within.  Hence,  to  get  relief  to  this  uneasy  feel- 
ing, they  made  coverings  for  themselves  of  such  things  as 
seemed  best  adapted  to  the  purpose,  out  of  that  vegetable 
world  which  had  been  freely  granted  for  their  use.  They 
girded  themselves  about  with  fig  leaves.  But  they  soon 
found  that  this  covering  proved  01  little  avail  to  hide  their 
shame,  where  most  of  all  they  needed  to  have  it  hidden ;  it 
left  them  miserably  exposed  to  the  just  condemnation  of  their 
offended  God.  If  a  real  and  valid  covering  should  be  ob- 
tained, sufficient  to  relieve  them  of  all  uneasiness,  God  Him- 
self must  provide  it.  And  so  He  actually  did.  As  soon  as 
the  promise  of  mercy  had  been  disclosed  to  the  offenders,  and 
the  constitution  of  mingled  goodness  and  severity  brought 
in,  He  made  coats  to  clothe  them  with,  and  these  coats  of  skins. 
But  clothing  so  obtained  argued  the  sacrifice  of  life  in  the 
animal  that  furnished  them;  and  thus,  through  the  death  of 
an  inferior  yet  innocent  living  creature,  was  the  needed  re- 
lief brought  to  their  disquieted  and  fearful  bosoms.  The  out- 
ward and  corporeal  here  manifestly  had  respect  to  the  inward 
and  spiritual.  The  covering  of  their  nakedness  was  a  gra- 
cious token  from  the  hand  of  God,  that  the  sin  which  had 
alienated  them  from  Him,  and  made  them  conscious  of  un- 
easiness, was  henceforth  to  be  in  His  sight  as  if  it  were  not ; 
BO  that  in  covering  their  flesh,  He  at  the  same  time  covered 
their  consciences.  If  viewed  apart  from  this  higher  symbol- 
ical aim,  the  outward  act  will  naturally  appear  small  and 
unworthy  of  God ;  but  so  to  view  it  were  to  dissever  it  from 
the  very  reason  of  its  performance.  It  was  done  purposely 
to  denote  the  covering  of  guilt  from  the  eye  of  Heaven — an 


250  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBEPTUBE. 

act  which  God  alone  could  have  done.  But  He  did  it,  as  we 
have  seen,  by  a  medium  of  death,  by  a  sacrifice  of  life  in 
those  creatures  which  men  were  not  yet  permitted  to  kill  for 
purposes  of  food,  and  in  connection  with  a  constitution  of 
grace  which  laid  open  the  prospect  of  recovered  life  and  bless- 
ing to  the  fallen.  Surely  it  is  not  attributing  to  the  vener- 
able heads  of  the  human  family,  persons  who  had  so  recently 
walked  with  God  in  paradise,  an  incredible  power  of  spiritual 
discernment,  or  supposing  them  to  stretch  unduly  tne  spir- 
itual import  of  this  particular  action  of  God,  if  we  should 
conceive  them  turning  the  divine  act  into  a  ground  of  obli- 
gation and  privilege  for  themselves,  and  saying,  Here  is 
Heaven's  own  finger  pointing  out  the  way  for  obtaining  relief 
to  our  guilty  consciences;  the  covering  of  our  shame  is  to 
be  found  by  means  of  the  skins  of  irrational  creatures,  slain 
in  our  behalf;  their  life  for  our  lives,  their  clothing  of  inno- 
cence for  our  shame ;  and  we  can  not  err,  we  shall  but  show 
our  faith  in  the  mercy  and  forgiveness  we  have  experienced, 
if,  as  often  as  the  sense  of  shame  and  guilt  returns  upon  our 
consciences,  we  follow  the  footsteps  of  the  Lord,  and,  by  a 
renewed  sacrifice  of  life,  clothe  ourselves  anew  with  His  own 
appointed  badge  of  acquittal  and  acceptance. 

We  are  not  to  be  understood  as  positively  aifirming  that 
our  first  parents  and  their  believing  posterity  reasoned  thus, 
or  that  they  actually  had  no  more  of  instruction  to  guide 
them.  We  merely  say,  that  they  may  quite  naturally  have 
so  reasoned,  and  that  we  have  no  authority  from  the  inspired 
record  to  suppose  that  any  further  instruction  was  commu- 
nicated. Indeed,  nothing  more  seems  strictly  necessary  for 
the  first  beginnings  of  sacrificial  worship.  And  it  was  still 
but  the  age  for  beginnings:  in  what  was  taught  and  done, 
we  should  expect  to  find  only  the  simplest  forms  of  truth 
and  duty.  The  Gospel,  in  its  clearer  announcements,  even 
the  law  with  its  specific  enactments,  would  then  have  been 
out  of  place.  All  that  was  absolutely  required,  and  all  that 
might  be  fairly  expected,  was  some  natural  and  expressive  act 
of  God  toward  men  laying,  when  thoughtfully  considered,  the 
foundation  of  a  religious  service  toward  Him.  The  claims  of 
the  Sabbatical  institution,  and  of  the  marriage  union,  had  a 
precisely  similar  foundation :  the  one  in  God's  personal  resting 
on  the  seventh  day,  hallowing  and  blessing  it ;  the  other  in  His 
formation  of  the  first  wife  out  of  the  first  husband.  It  was 
simply  the  divine  procedure  in  these  cases  which  formed  the 
ground  of  man's  obligation ;  because  that  procedure  was  essen- 
tially a  revelation  of  the  mind  and  will  of  Godhead  for  the 
guidance  of  the  rational  beings  who,  being  made  in  God's 


SACRIFICIAL  WORSHIP.  251 

image,  were  to  find  their  glory  and  their  well-being  in  appro- 
priating His  acts,  and  copying  after  His  example.  So  here, 
God's  fundamental  act  in  removing  and  covering  out  of 
sight  the  shame  of  conscious  guilt  in  the  first  offenders,  would 
both  naturally  and  rightfully  be  viewed  as  a  revelation  of 
God,  teaching  them  how,  in  henceforth  dealing  with  Him 
they  were  to  proceed  in  effecting  the  removal  of  guilt,  and 
appearing,  notwithstanding  it,  in  the  presence  of  God.  They 
found,  in  this  divine  act,  the  key  to  a  justified  condition,  and 
an  acceptable  intercourse  with  Heaven.  Had  they  not  done 
so,  it  would  have  been  incapable  of  rational  explanation,  how 
a  believing  Abel  should  so  soon  have  appeared  in  posses- 
sion of  it.  Yet  it  could  not  have  been  rendered  so  palpable 
as  to  obtrude  itself  on  the  carnal  and  unbelieving;  otherwise 
it  would  scarcely  be  less  capable  of  explanation,  how  a  self- 
willed  Cain  should  so  soon  have  ventured  to  disregard  it, 
The  ground  of  dissension  between  the  two  brothers  must 
have  been  of  a  somewhat  narrower  and  more  debatable 
character,  than  if  an  explicit  and  formal  direction  had  been 
given.  And  in  the  divine  act  referred  to — viewed  in  its 
proper  light,  and  taken  in  connection  with  the  whole  circum- 
stances of  the  time — there  was  precisely  what  might  have 
tended  to  originate  both  results :  enough  of  light  to  instruct 
the  humble  heart  of  faith,  mainly  intent  on  having  pardon 
of  sin  and  peace  with  God,  and  yet  not  too  much  to  leave 
proud  and  unsanctified  nature  without  an  excuse  for  follow- 
ing a  course  more  agreeable  to  its  own  inclinations.1 

3.  We  thus  hold  sacrifice — sacrifice  in  the  higher  sense, 

1  Substantially  the  correct  view  was  presented  of  this  subject  in  a  work 
by  Dr.  Croly,  though,  like  several  other  things  in  this  same  volume,  attended 
with  the  twofold  disadvantage,  of  not  being  properly  grounded,  and  of  being 
encumbered  with  some  untenable  positions: — "God  alone  is  described  as  in 
act,  and  His  only  act  is  that  of  clothing  the  two  criminals.  The  whole  pas- 
sage is  but  one  of  many  in  which  a  rigid  adherence  to  the  text  is  the  way  of 
safety.  The  literal  meaning  at  once  exalts  the  rite  and  illustrates  its  purposes. 
.  .  .  Adam  in  paradise  has  no  protection  from  the  divine  wrath,  but  he 
needs  none;  he  is  pure.  In  his  hour  of  crime  he  finds  the  fatal  difference 
between  good  and  evil,  feels  that  he  requires  protection  from  the  eye  of  jus- 
tice, and  makes  an  ineffectual  effort  to  supply  that  protection  by  his  own 
means.  But  the  expedient  which  can  not  be  supplied  by  man,  is  finally 
supplied  by  the  divine  interposition.  God  clothes  him,  and  his  nakedness 
is  the  source  of  anguish  and  terror  no  more.  The  contrast  to  the  materials 
of  his  imperfect  and  perfect  clothing  is  equally  impressive.  Adam,  in  his 
first  consciousness  of  having  provoked  the  divine  displeasure,  covers  himself 
with  the  frail  produce  of  the  ground,  the  branch  and  leaf;  but  from  the  period 
of  forgiveness  he  is  clothed  with  the  substantial  product  of  the  flock,  the 
skin  of  the  slain  animal.  If  circumstances  apparently  so  trivial  as  the  cloth- 
ing of  our  original  parents  are  stated,  what  other  reason  can  be  assigned, 
than  that  they  were  not  trivial,  that  they  formed  a  marked  feature  of  the 
divine  dispensation,  and  that  they  were  important  to  be  recorded  for  the 
spiritual  guidance  of  man  ? '  —  Divine  Providence,  pp.  194-196. 


252  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCULPTURE. 

not  as  expressive  of  dependence  and  thankfulness  merely, 
but  as  connected  with  sin  and  forgiveness,  expiatory  sacrifice 
— to  have  been,  as  to  its  foundation,  of  divine  origin.  It  had 
its  rise  in  an  act  of  God,  done  for  the  express  purpose  of  re- 
lieving guilty  consciences  of  their  sense  of  shame  and  confu- 
sion; and  from  the  earliest  periods  of  recorded  worship  it 
stands  forth  to  our  view  as  the  religious  solemnity  in  which 
faith  had  its  most  peculiar  exercise,  and  for  which  God  be- 
stowed the  tokens  of  His  acceptance  and  blessing.  For  the 
discussion  of  some  collateral  points  belonging  to  the  subject, 
and  the  disposal  of  a  few  objections,  we  refer  to  the  Appen- 
dix.1 And  we  now  proceed  here  briefly  to  inquire  what  sac- 
rifice, as  thus  originating  and  thus  presented,  symbolically 
expressed.  What  feelings  on  the  part  of  the  worshipper, 
what  truths  on  the  part  of  God,  did  it  embody  ? 

Partly,  indeed,  the  inquiry  has  been  answered  already.  It 
was  impossible  to  conduct  the  discussion  thus  far  without 
indicating  the  leading  ideas  involved  in  primitive  sacrifice. 
It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  we  are  still  dealing 
with  sacrifice  in  its  simplest  and  most  elementary  form — rad- 
ically, no  doubt,  the  same  as  it  was  under  the  more  complex 
and  detailed  arrangements  of  the  Mosaic  ritual,  but  in  com- 
parison of  that  wanting  much  in  fulness  and  variety.  As 
employed  by  the  first  race  of  believing  worshippers,  a  few 
leading  points  are  all  that  it  can  properly  be  regarded  as 
embracing. 

(1.)  Both  from  the  manner  of  its  origin,  and  its  own  essen- 
tial nature,  as  involving  in  every  act  of  worship  the  sacrifice 
of  a  creature's  life,  it  bore  impressive  testimony  to  the  sinful- 
ness  of  the  offerer's  condition.  Those  who  presented  it  could 
not  but  know  that  God  was  far  from  delighting  in  blood,  and 
that  death,  either  in  man  or  beast,  was  not  a  thing  in  which 
He  could  be  supposed  to  take  pleasure.  The  explicit  connec- 
tion of  death,  also,  with  the  first  transgression,  as  the  proper 
penalty  of  sin,  was  peculiarly  fitted  to  suggest  painful  and 
humiliating  thoughts  in  the  minds  of  those  who  stood  so  near 
to  the  awful  moment  of  the  fall.  And  when  death,  under 
God's  own  directing  agency,  was  brought  so  prominently  into 
the  divine  service,  and  every  act  of  worship,  of  the  more  sol- 
emn kind,  carried  in  its  bosom  the  life-blood  of  an  innocent 
creature,  what  more  striking  memorial  could  thev  have  had 
of  the  evil  wrought  in  their  condition  by  sin  ?  \^ith  such  an 
element  of  blood  perpetually  mingling  in  their  services,  they 
could  not  forget  that  they  stood  upon  the  floor  of  a  broken 

1  Appendix  0. 


SACEIFICIAL  WORSHIP.  258 

covenant,  and  were  themselves  ever  incurring  anew  the  just 
desert  of  transgression. 

(2.)  Then,  looking  more  particularly  to  the  sanction  and 
encouragement  of  God  given  to  such  a  mode  of  worshipping 
Him,  it  bespoke  their  believing  conviction  of  His  reconcilable 
and  gracious  disposition  toward  them,  notwithstanding  their 
smfulness.  They  gave  here  distinct  and  formal  expression  to 
their  faith,  that  as  they  needed  mercy,  so  they  recognized  God 
as  ready  to  dispense  it  to  those  who  humbly  sought  Him 
through  this  channel  of  communion.  Such  a  faith,  indeed, 
had  been  presumption,  the  groundless  conceit  of  nature's  arro- 
gancy  or  ignorance,  if  it  had  not  had  a  divine  foundation  to 
rest  upon,  and  tokens  of  divine  acceptance  in  the  acts  of  ser- 
vice it  rendered.  But  these,  as  we  have  seen,  it  plainly  had. 
So  that  a  sacrificial  worship  thus  performed  bore  evidence  as 
well  to  the  just  expectations  of  mercy  and  forgiveness  on  the 
part  of  those  who  presented  it,  as  to  their  uneasy  sense  of 
guilt  and  shame  prompting  them  to  do  so. 

(3.)  But,  looking  again  to  the  original  ground  and  author- 
ity of  this  sacrificial  worship, — the  act  of  God  in  graciously 
covering  the  shame  and  guilt  of  sin, — and  to  the  seal  of  ac- 
ceptance afterwards  set  so  peculiarly  and  emphatically  on  it, 
the  great  truth  was  expressed  by  it,  on  the  part  of  God,  that 
the  taking  away  of  life  stood  essentially  connected  with  the 
taking  away  of  sin;  or,  as  .expressed  in  later  Scripture,  that 
"  v*n.thout  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission  of  sins." 
In  accordance  with  the  general  character  of  the  primeval 
'jcnstitution  of  things,  this  truth  comes  out,  not  as  a  formal 
enunciation  of  principle,  or  an  authoritative  enactment  of 
tJeaven,  but  as  an  embodied  fact ;  a  fact,  in  the  first  instance, 
of  God's  hand,  significantly  indicating  His  mind  and  will,  and 
then  believingly  contemplated,  acted  upon,  substantially  re- 
enacted  by  His  sincere  worshippers,  with  His  clearly  marked 
approval.  The  form  may  be  regarded  as  peculiar,  but  not  so 
the  truth  enshrined  in  it.  This  is  common  to  all  times;  and 
after  holding  a  primary  place  in  every  phase  of  a  preparatory 
religion,  it  rose  at  last  to  a  position  of  transcendent  impor- 
tance in  the  work  and  kingdom  of  Christ.  How  far  Adam 
and  his  immediate  descendants  might  be  able  to  descry,  under 
their  imperfect  t'orms  of  worship,  and  the  accompanying  in- 
timations oi  recovery,  the  ultimate  ground  in  this  respect  of 
faith  and  hope  for  sinful  men,  can  be  to  us  only  matter  of 
vague  conjecture  or  doubtful  speculation.  Their  views  would, 
perhaps,  considerably  differ,  according  as  their  faith  was  more 
or  less  clear  in  its  discernment,  more  or  less  lively  in  its  per- 
«eptions  of  the  truth  couched  under  the  symbolical  acts  ancj 


254  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF   SCULPTURE. 

revelations  of  God.  But  unless  more  specific  information  was 
given  than  is  found  in  the  sacred  record  (and  we  have  no  war- 
rant to  suppose  there  was  more),  the  anticipations  formed 
even  by  the  most  enlightened  of  those  primitive  believers, 
regarding  the  way  an,d  manner  in  which  the  blood  of  sacrifice 
was  ultimately  to  enter  into  the  plan  of  God,  must  have  been 
comparatively  vague  and  indefinite. 

(4.)  For  us,  however,  who  can  read  the  symbol  before  us 
by  the  clear  light  of  the  Gospel,  and  from  the  high  vantage- 
ground  of  a  finished  redemption  can  look  back  upon  the 
temporary  institutions  that  foreshadowed  it,  there  is  neither 
darkness  nor  uncertainty  respecting  the  prophetic  import  of 
the  primeval  rite  of  sacrifice.  We  perceive  there  in  the  germ 
the  fundamental  truth  of  that  scheme  of  grace  which  was  to 
provide  for  the  complete  and  final  restoration  of  a  seed  of 
blessing — the  truth  of  a  suffering  Mediator,  giving  His  life  a 
ransom  for  many.  Here,  again,  we  behold  the  ends  of  reve- 
lation mutually  embracing  and  contributing  to  throw  light 
on  each  other.  And  as  amid  the  perfected  glories  of  Mes- 
siah's kingdom  all  appears  clustering  around  the  Lamb  that 
was  slain,  and  doing  homage  to  Him  for  His  matchless  hu 
initiation  and  triumphant  victory,  so  the  earliest  worship  of 
believing  humanity  points  to  His  coming  sacrifice  as  the  one 
ground  of  hope  and  security  to  the  fallen.  At  a  subsequent 
period,  when  believers  were  furnished  with  a  fuller  revelation 
and  a  more  complicated  worship,  symbolical  representations 
were  given  of  many  other  and  subordinate  parts  of  the  work 
of  redemption.  But  when  that  worship  existed  in  its  simplest 
form,  and  embodied  only  the  first  elements  of  the  truth,  it  was 
meet  that  what  was  ultimately  to  form  the  groundwork  of  the 
whole  should  have  been  alone  distinctly  represented.  And  ive 
shall  not  profit,  as  we  should,  by  the  contemplation  of  that 
one  rite  wnich  stands  so  prominently  out  in  the  original  wor- 
ship of  the  believing  portion  of  mankind,  if  it  does  not  tend 
to  deepen  upon  our  minds  the  incomparable  worth  and  impor- 
tance of  a  crucified  Redeemer,  as  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation. 


CHAPTER  FIFTH. 

THE    MARRIAGE    RELATION   AND   THE   SABBATICAL   LNSTITTTIION. 

THE  two  ordinances  of  marriage  and  the  Sabbath  are  here 
coupled  together,  as  having  so  much  in  common,  that  they 
alike  belonged  to  the  primeval  constitution  of  things,  and 
were  alike  intended,  without  any  formal  alteration,  to  trans- 
mit their  validity  to  times  subsequent  to  the  fall.  They  car- 
ried an  import,  and  involved  obligations,  which  should  be 
co-extensive  with  the  generations  of  mankind.  Yet  with  this 
general  agreement  there  is  a  specific  difference,  which  is  of 
moment  as  regards  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  subjects 
must  here  be  contemplated.  The  formation  of  a  partner  for 
Adam  out  of  a  portion  of  his  own  frame,  and  the  junction  of 
the  two  under  the  direct  sanction  of  their  Maker,  so  as  to 
form  in  a  manner  one  flesh,  however  important  in  a  social 
and  economical  respect,  however  fitted  also  to  bear  indirectly 
on  the  higher  interests  of  the  world,  was  still  not  formally  of 
a  religious  nature.  For  the  world's  secular  well-being  alone 
there  were  reasons  amply  sufficient  to  account  for  its  divine 
Author  resorting  to  such  a  method,  when  bringing  into  being 
the  first  family  pair,  and  in  them  laying  the  foundations  of 
the  world's  social  existence.  For  it  was  by  an  instructive 
and  appropriate  act,  entwined  with  the  very  beginnings  of 
social  life  on  earth,  that  the  essential  conditions  must  be  ex- 
hibited— if  exhibited  so  as  to  tell  with  permanent  effect — of 
its  healthful  organization  and  comely  order.  And  so  far  from 
being,  as  some  have  alleged,  an  unbecoming  representation 
of  the  divine  character,  a  lowering  of  the  divine  majesty,  that 
Eve  should  have  been  said  to  be  formed  out  of  Adam's  side, 
and  thereafter  presented  to  him  as  his  own  flesh  and  bone, — 
on  account  of  which  they  would  turn  the  whole  narrative 
into  a  myth, — it  will  be  found,  when  duly  considered  and 
viewed  in  the  light  of  the  important  interests  depending  on 
it,  every  way  worthy  of  the  wise  foresight  and  paternal  good- 
ness of  Deity.  He  has  thus  interwoven  with  the  closing  act 


256  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

of  creation  an  imperishable  moral  lesson, — made  it,  indeed, 
the  perpetual  and  impressive  symbol  of  the  great  truth, — that 
the  fundamental  relation  in  family  life  was  to  consist  in  the 
union  of  one  man  and  one  woman;  and  these  so  bound  to- 
gether as  that,  while  distinctions  as  to  authority  and  power 
on  the  one  side,  and  subordination  and  dependence  on  the 
other,  should  exist  between  them,  they  should  still  be  regarded 
as  a  social  unity — corporate  manhood.  So  far  from  the  divine 
procedure  in  this  overstepping  the  bounds  of  what  was  fit  and 
needful,  the  records  of  history  are  not  long  in  furnishing 
mournful  evidence  that  it  proved  all  too  little  to  secure  the 
end  in  view ;  it  failed  to  perpetuate  the  intended  unity  and 
good  order  of  families.  Even  among  the  chosen  people,  the 
practical  inference  drawn  from  it  with  instinctive  sagacity 
and  true  spiritual  insight  by  the  first  Adam  ("Therefore 
shall  a  man  leave  father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his 
wife,  and  they  shall  be  one  flesh  ") l  came  to  be  so  much  lost 
sight  of,  that  it  required  to  be  announced  afresh,  and  with 
greater  stringency  imposed,  by  the  second  Adam.  * 

The  scriptural  evidence  for  the  deep  significance  of  the 
divine  act  in  respect  to  the  formation  of  Eve,  and  the  nature 
of  the  marriage  union  founded  on  it,  is  both  explicit  and  am- 
ple. But  in  the  circumstances  of  the  parents  themselves  of 
the  human  family,  and  also  of  those  of  their  posterity  who  lived 
in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  world,  it  could  scarcely  have  occurred 
to  them  to  carry  that  significance  into  any  sphere  beyond  that 
of  the  family  life.  Nothing  in  the  prospect  as  yet  held  out 
to  them  of  a  restored  condition,  was  fitted  to  give  their  ideas 
so  definite  a  shape  as  to  suggest  a  spiritual  relationship  formed 
after  the  model  of  this  natural  one;  and  in  the  religion  of 
patriarchal,  or  even  much  later  times,  scarcely  any  thing  is 
found  that  bears  this  specific  impress.  A  kind  of  marriage 
union,  indeed,  is  implied  to  have  sprung  up  between  God 
and  His  people,  as  the  result  of  His  fuller  manifestation  of 
Himself  to  them,  and  His  closer  intimacy  with  them  in  the 
wilderness,  since  their  defection  from  His  service  is  repre- 
sented under  the  light  of  an  adultery  or  whoredom,* — a 
style  of  representation  which  became  of  frequent  occurrence 
in  the  writings  of  the  later  prophets.4  In  one  or  two  pas- 
sages also  the  Lord  expressly  takes  to  Himself  the  name  of 
the  husband  of  Israel,  or  speaks  of  Himself  as  having  been 
married  to  them.'  In  the  Book  of  Canticles  this  relation  even 
forms  the  scene  of  a  kind  of  spiritual  drama;  and  in  the  45th 

'  Gen.  ii.  24.  *  Matt.  xix.  5,  6.  3  Num.  riv.  33. 

«  Lsa.  lyii.  3;  Jer.  iii.  9,  xiii.  27;  Ezek.  xvi.  xiiii.  ;  Hos.  i.  ii.,  etc. 
»Is&.  liv.  5;  Jer.  iii  14. 


THE  SABBATICAL  INSTITUTION.  257 

Psalm  the  hero  of  the  piece,  the  King  of  Zion,  is  even  repre- 
sented as  standing  formally  related  to  a  queen  who  shares 
with  Him  in  the  honors  of  the  Kingdom,  and  by  whom  can 
only  be  understood  the  true  Israel  of  God.  It  is  not  to  be 
denied,  however,  that  this  series  of  Old  Testament  represen- 
tations took  its  formal  rise  in  the  covenant  engagement  entered 
into  at  Sinai,  and  merely  availed  itself  of  the  marriage  bond 
as  one  peculiarly  adapted  for  portraying  the  obligations  and 
advantages  connected  with  fidelity  to  the  engagement,  or  the 
guilt  and  folly  of  violating  it.  In  none  of  the  passages  does 
there  seem  any  distinct  reference  to  the  primeval  union  in 
Eden ;  and  rather  as  a  fitting  emblem,  than  a  type  in  the  prop- 
er sense,  is  the  marriage  relation  in  such  cases  employed — 
much  as  also  the  relations  of  a  pastor  to  his  flock,1  of  a  hus- 
bandman to  his  vineyard,8  or  of  a  king  to  his  subjects.* 

We  are  not  therefore  disposed  to  connect  with  the  relig- 
ious worship  or  hopes  which  came  in  after  the  fall,  any  distinct 
reference  to  the  marriage  relation,  viewed  as  growing  out  of 
Eve's  derivation  from  Adam,  and  subjection  to  him.  In  that 
particular  form,  and  as  an  ideal  pattern  for  the  nourishment 
of  faith  and  hope,  it  belongs  to  New  rather  than  Old  Testa- 
ment times — the  times,  namely,  when  the  Lord  from  heaven 
stands  distinctly  revealed  in  the  character  of  the  second  Adam. 
As  such,  He  also  must  have  His  spouse,  and  has  it  in  part 
now;  but  shall  have  it  in  completeness  hereafter,  in  the  com- 
pany of  faithful  souls  who  have  been  washed  from  their  sins 
in  His  blood — the  elect  Church,  which  in  all  its  members 
grows  out  of  His  root,  lives  by  His  life,  and  is  called  at  once 
to  share  in  His  glory,  and  to  minister  as  an  handmaid  to  His 
will.  So  that  the  mystery  of  the  primeval  spouse  ("  bone  of 
Adam's  bone,  flesh  of  his  flesh ")  may  justly  be  regarded  as 
the  mystery  of  the  Church  in  her  relation  to  Christ.4  But 
in  this  special  aspect  of  the  matter, — an  aspect  that  belongs 
to  creation  rather  than  to  strictly  historical  times, — it  must 
be  allowed  to  stand  in  some  respects  apart  from  the  typical 
relations  with  which  we  have  now  properly  to  deal,  and  wnich 
all  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  contributed  to  mould  the  relig- 
ious views  and  feelings  of  fallen  men. 

It  is  otherwise  in  the  respects  now  mentioned  with  the 
Sabbatical  institution,  which  also  belongs  to  the  primeval 
constitution  of  things.  This  at  once  bore  a  direct  religious 
aspect,  and  pointed  to  the  future  as  well  as  the  present  The 

1  Pa  xxiii. ;  Ezek.  xxxvi. ;  Zech.  xL 

*  Ps.  Ixxx. ;  Isa.  v.  1-7;  Ezek.  xv. 

*  1  Sam.  viii.  7;  Ps.  ii.,  etc. 

*  Eph.  v.  30-32;  2  Cor.  xi  2;  Her.  xix.  7,  xxi.  2. 

VOL.  I. — 17 


258  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKIPTUBE. 

record  given  of  it  tells  us  that  "  on  the  seventh  day  God  ended 
His  work  which  He  had  made;  and  He  rested  on  the  sev- 
enth day  from  all  His  work  which  He  had  made.  And  God 
blessed  the  seventh  day,  and  sanctified  it ;  because  that  in  it 
He  had  rested  from  all  His  work  which  God  created  and 
made."1  This  procedure  of  God  appears  in  such  immediate 
contact  with  the  work  of  creation  (for  in  that  respect  the  pas- 
sage admits  but  of  one  fair  interpretation),  that  the  bearing  it 
was  intended  to  have  on  man's  views  and  obligations  must 
primarily  have  had  respect  to  his  original  destination;  and 
if  designed  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  stated  order,  this  must 
have  been  one  perfectly  suited  to  the  paradisiacal  state.  Yet 
a  slight  reflection  might  have  sufficed  to  convince  any  thought- 
ful mind,  that  whatever  significance  it  might  have  for  the 
occupants  of  such  a  state,  that  could  not  be  lost,  but  must 
even  have  been  deepened  and  increased,  by  the  circumstances 
of  their  fall  from  it. 

In  the  procedure  itself  of  God  there  may  be  noted  a  three- 
fold stage,  each  carrying  a  distinct  and  important  meaning. 
First,  the  rest  itself:  "  He  rested  on  the  seventh  day  from  all 
His  work;"  and  in  Ex.  xxxi.  17,  the  yet  stronger  expression 
is  used,  of  God's  -refreshing  Himself  on  that  day.  Figurative 
language  this  must,  no  doubt,  be  understood  to  be, — for  "  the 
Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary," 
— yet  it  is  not  the  less  expressive  of  a  great  truth,  and  one  just 
as  cognizable  by  man  as  the  acts  of  creative  energy  by  which  it 
was  preceded.  What  was  it,  indeed,  but  the  proper  comple- 
ment of  creation — the  immediate  result  at  which  it  aimed,  and 
in  which,  as  by  an  appropriate  act,  the  seal  of  Heaven  was 
set  on  its  beauty  and  conpleteness  ?  The  divine  Architect  is 
presented  to  our  view  at  the  close  of  His  creative  work, 
which  had  reached  its  consummation  in  the  appearance  and 
delegated  lordship  of  man,  looking  with  complacence  on  the 
product  of  His  hands, — taking  it,  as  it  were,  to  His  bosom, 
and  in  the  freshness  of  its  joy  and  the  prospect  of  its  goodly 
order  finding  satisfaction  to  Himself.  How  near  does  not 
this  show  God  to  be  to  His  creatures — in  particular  to  the 
rational  and  spiritual  portion  of  them  ?  And  must  there  not 
have  been  on  their  part  the  response  of  an  intelligent  appre- 
ciation and  living  fellowship?  Must  not  man,  endowed  as 
he  was  with  God's  likeness,  and  crowned  with  glory  and 
honor  as  God's  representative,  here  also  have  communion 
with  his  Maker  ?  How  could  he  fail  to  do  so  ?  As  it  was  his 
calling  to  enter  into  God's  work — to  take  it  up,  in  a  manner, 

i  Gen.  ii  2,  3. 


THE  SABBATICAL  INSTITUTION.  259 

where  God  left  it,  and  carry  it  forward  to  its  destined  results ; 
so  it  was  his  privilege  to  enter  into  God's  rest — making  this 
in  a  sense  his  own,  and  thereby  rendering  earth  both  as  to 
action  and  enjoyment  the  reflex  of  heaven. 

But  this  was  not  left  to  be  simply  inferred ;  for  if  even  the 
first  stage  of  this  divine  act  has  respect  to  man,  still  more  has 
the  second,  which  points  directly  and  exclusively  to  him: 
"  And  God  blessed  the  seventh  day."  This  blessing  of  the  day 
is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  sanctifying  of  it,  which  im- 
mediately follows,  as  if  the  meaning  were,  God  blessed  it  by 
sanctifying  it.  The  blessing  is  distinct  from  the  sanctifica- 
tion,  and  is,  so  to  speak,  the  settling  of  a  special  dowry  on  it 
for  every  one  who  should  give  due  heed  to  its  proper  end 
and  object.  Let  man — the  divine  act  of  blessing  virtually 
said — only  enter  into  God's  mind,  and  tread  in  His  footsteps, 
by  resting  every  seventh  day  from  his  works,  and  he  shall 
undoubtedly  find  it  to  his  profit;  the  blessing,  which  is  life 
for  evermore,  shall  descend  on  him.  What  he  may  lose  for 
the  moment  in  productive  employment,  shall  be  amply  com- 
pensated by  the  refreshment  it  will  bring  to  his  frame — by 
the  enlargement  and  elevation  of  his  soul — above  all,  by  the 
spiritual  fellowship  and  interest  in  God  which  becomes  the 
abiding  portion  of  those  who  follow  Him  in  their  ways,  and 
perpetually  return  to  Him  as  the  supreme  rest  of  their  souls. 

Then,  the  last  stage  in  the  procedure  of  God  on  this  occa- 
sion indicates  how  the  two  earlier  ones  were  to  be  secured : 
"  He  sanctified  it,"  set  it  sacredly  apart  from  the  others. 
Having  appointed  it  to  a  distinctive  end,  He  conferred  on  it 
a  distinctive  character,  that  His  creature,  man,  might  from 
time  to  time  be  doing  in  his  line  of  things  what  the  Creator 
had  already  done  in  His — might,  after  six  successive  days  of 
work,  take  one  to  re-invigorate  his  frame,  to  reflect  calmly  on 
the  past,  and  view  the  part  he  has  taken  and  the  relations  he 
occupies  on  the  outward  and  visible  theatre  of  the  world,  in 
the  light  of  the  spiritual  and  the  eternal.  It  was  to  be  his  call- 
ing and  his  destiny  on  earth,  not  simply  to  work,  but  to  work 
as  a  reasonable  and  moral  being,  after  the  example  of  his 
Maker,  for  specific  ends.  And  for  this  he  needed  seasons  of 
quiet  repose  and  thoughtful  consideration,  not  less  than  time 
and  opportunity  for  active  labor;  as,  otherwise,  he  could 
neither  properly  enjoy  the  work  of  his  hands,  nor  obtain  for 
the  higher  part  of  his  nature  that  nobler  good  which  is  re- 
quired to  satisfy  it.  God,  therefore,  when  he  had  finished  the 
work  of  creation  by  making  man,  sanctified  the  seventh  day 
— His  own  seventh,  but  mans  first ;  for  man  had  not  first  to 
work  and  then  to  reap,  but,  as  God's  vicegerent,  nature's  king 


260  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUKE. 

and  high  priest,  could  at  once  enter  into  his  Maker's  heritage 
of  blessing.  And  henceforth,  in  the  career  that  lay  before 
him,  ever  and  anon  returning  from  the  field  of  active  labor 
assigned  him  in  cultivating  and  subduing  the  earth,  he  must 
on  the  hallowed  day  of  rest  gather  in  his  thoughts  and  desires 
from  the  world,  and,  retiring  into  God  as  his  sanctuary,  hold 
with  Him  a  Sabbatism  of  peaceful  and  blessed  communion. 

The  divine  procedure,  then,  in  every  one  of  its  stages, 
plainly  points  to  man,  and  aims  at  his  participation  in  the 
likeness  and  enjoyment  of  God.  "  With  the  Sabbath,"  says 
Sartorius  happily,  and  we  rejoice  and  hail  it  as  a  token  for 
good,  that  such  thoughts  on  the  Sabbath  are  finding  utterance 
in  the  high  places  of  Germany — "  with  the  Sabbath  begins 
the  sacred  history,  of  man — the  day  on  which  he  stood  forth 
to  bless  God,  and,  in  company  with  Eve,  entered  on  his  divine 
calling  upon  earth.  The  creation  without  the  creation  festi- 
val, the  world's  unrest  without  rest  in  God,  is  altogether  vain 
and  transitory.  The  sacred  day  appointed,  blessed,  consecra- 
ted by  God,  is  that  from  which  the  blessing  and  sanctification 
of  the  world  and  time,  of  human  life  and  human  society,  pro- 
ceed. Nor  is  any  thing  more  needed  than  the  recognition  of 
its  original  appointment  and  sacred  destination,  for  our  receiv- 
ing the  full  impression  of  its  sanctity.  How  was  it  possible 
for  the  first  man  ever  to  forget  it?  From  the  very  beginning 
was  it  written  upon  his  heart,  Remember  the  Sabbath  day  to 
sanctify  it."1  There  is  nothing  new  in  such  views.  Substan- 
tially the  same  interpretation  that  we  have  given  is  put  on 
the  original  notice  in  Genesis,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
(ch.  iv.),  where  the  record  of  God's  rest  at  the  close  of  crea- 
tion is  referred  to  as  the  first  form  of  the  promise  made  to 
man  of  entering  into  God's  rest.  The  record,  then,  of  what 
God  in  that  respect  did,  was  a  revelation.  It  embodied  a  call 
and  a  promise  to  man  of  high  fellowship  with  the  Creator  in 
His  peculiar  felicity,  and  consequently  inferred  an  obligation 
on  man's  part  both  to  seek  the  end  proposed,  and  to  seek  it 
in  the  method  of  God's  appointment.  But  did  the  obligation 
cease  when  man  fell  ?  or  was  the  promise  cancelled  ?  Assur- 
edly not — not,  at  least,  after  the  time  that  the  introduction 
of  an  economy  of  grace  laid  open  for  the  fallen  the  prospect 
of  a  new  inheritance  in  God.  So  far  from  having  lost  its  sig- 
nificance or  its  value,  the  Creator's  Sabbatism  then  acquired 
fresh  meaning  and  importance,  and  became  so  peculiarly 
adapted  to  the  altered  condition  of  the  world,  that  we  can 
not  but  regard  it  as  having  from  the  first  contemplated  the 

1  Sartorius  fiber  den  alt  und  neu-Test.  cultus,  p.  17. 


THE  SABBATICAL  INSTITUTION.  261 

j  hysical  and  moral  evils  that  were  to  issue  from  the  fall.  In 
tne  language  of  Hengstenberg,  with  whom  we  gladly  concur 
on  this  branch  of  the  subject,  though  on  several  others  we 
shall  be  constrained  to  differ  from  him,  "  It  presupposes  work, 
and  such  work  as  has  a  tendency  to  draw  us  away  from  God. 
It  is  the  remedy  for  the  injuries  we  are  apt  to  incur  through  this 
work.  If  any  thing  is  clear,  it  is  the  connection  between  the 
Sabbath  and  the  fall.  The  work  which  needs  intermission, 
lest  the  divine  life  should  be  imperilled  by  it,  is  not  [we  would 
rather  say,  is  not  so  much]  the  cheerful  and  pleasant  employ- 
ment of  which  we  read  in  Gen.  ii.  15 ;  it  is  [rather]  the  oppress- 
ive and  degrading  toil  spoken  of  in  Gen.  lii.  19,  work  done  in 
the  sweat  of  the  brow,  upon  a  soil  that  brings  forth  thorns 
and  thistles."1  We  would  put  the  statement  comparatively 
rather  than  absolutely ;  for  the  rest  of  God  being  held  on  the 
first  seventh  day  of  the  world's  existence,  and  the  day  being 
immediately  consecrated  and  blessed,  it  must  have  had  re- 
spect to  the  place  and  occupation  of  man  even  in  paradise, 
why  should  work  there  be  supposed  to  have  differed  in  kind 
from  work  elsewhere  and  since  r  There  could  be  room  only 
for  a  difference  in  degree ;  and  being  work  from  its  very  na- 
ture that  led  the  soul  to  aim  at  specific  objects,  and  put  forth 
continuous  efforts  on  what  is  outward,  it  required  to  be 
met  by  a  stated  periodical  institution,  that  would  recall  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  soul  more  within  itself.  Man's 
perfection  in  that  original  state  was  only  a  relative  one.  It 
needed  certain  correctives  and  stimulants  to  secure  the  con- 
tinued enjoyment  of  the  good  belonging  to  it.  It  needed,  in 
particular,  perpetual  access  to  the  tree  of  life  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  bodily,  and  an  ever-returning  Sabbatism  for 
that  of  the  spiritual  life.  But  if  such  a  Sabbatism  was  re- 
quired even  for  man's  well-being  in  paradise,  where  the  work 
was  so  light  and  the  order  so  beautiful,  how  could  it  be  im- 
agined that  the  sabbatical  institution  might  be  either  safely 
or  lawfully  disregarded  in  a  world  of  sorrow,  temptation,  and 
hardship  ? 

Was  there  really,  however,  any  sabbatical  institution? 
There  is  no  command  respecting  it  m  this  portion  of  the  in- 
spired record.  And  may  not  the  mention  there  made  of  God's 
keeping  the  Sabbath,  and  blessing  and  sanctifying  the  day, 
have  been  made  simply  with  a  prospective  reference  to  the 
precept  that  was  ultimately  to  be  imposed  on  the  Israelites? 
So  it  has  been  alleged  with  endless  frequency  by  those  who 
can  find  no  revelation  of  the  divine  will,  and  no  obligation  or 

>  Ueber  den  Tag.  des  Herrn,  p.  12. 


262  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

moral  duty  excepting  what  comes  in  the  authoritative  form 
of  a  command ;  and  it  is  still  substantially  reiterated  by  Heng- 
stenberg,  who  certainly  can  not  be  charged  with  such  a  blunt- 
ness  of  spiritual  discernment.  We  meet  the  allegation  with 
the  statement  that  has  already  been  repeatedly  urged — that  it 
was  not  yet  the  time  for  the  formal  enactments  of  law,  and 
that  it  was  by  other  means  man  was  to  learn  God's  mind  and 
his  own  duty.  The  ground  of  obligation  lay  in  the  divine 
act ;  the  rule  of  duty  was  exhibited  in  the  divine  example ; 
for  these  were  disclosed  to  men  from  the  first,  not  to  gratify 
an  idle  curiosity,  but  for  the  express  purpose  of  leading  them 
to  know  and  do  what  is  agreeable  to  the  will  of  God.  If 
such  means  were  not  sufficient  to  speak  with  clearness  and 
authority  to  men's  consciences,  then  it  may  be  affirmed  that 
the  first  race  of  mankind  were  free  from  all  authoritative  direc- 
tion and  control  whatever.  They  were  not  imperatively  bound 
either  to  fear  God  or  to  regard  man ;  for,  excepting  in  the  man- 
ner now  stated,  no  general  obligations  of  service  were  laid  on 
them.  But  to  suppose  this;  to  suppose,  even  in  regard  to 
what  is  written  of  the  original  Sabbatism  of  God,  that  it  did 
not  bear  directly  upon  the  privileges  and  duties  of  the  very 
first  members  of  the  human  family,  is  in  truth  to  make  void 
that  portion  of  revelation — to  treat  it  as  if,  where  it  stands, 
it  were  a  superfluity  or  a  blemish.  We  can  not  so  regard  it. 
We  hold  by  the  truthfulness  and  natural  import  of  the  divine 
record.  And  doing  this,  we  are  shut  up  to  the  conclusion, 
that  it  was  at  first  designed  and  appointed  by  God  that  man- 
kind should  sanctify  every  returning  seventh  day,  as  a  sea- 
son of  comparative  rest  from  worldly  labor,  of  spiritual  con- 
templation and  religious  employment,  that  so  they  might 
cease  from  their  own  works  and  enter  into  the  rest  of  God. 

But  we  shall  not  pursue  the  subject  further  at  present. 
We  even  leave  unnoticed  some  of  the  objections  that  have 
been  raised  against  the  existence  of  a  primeval  Sabbath,  as 
the  subject  must  again  return,  and  in  a  more  controversial 
aspect,  when  we  come  to  consider  the  place  assigned  to  the 
law  of  the  Sabbath  in  the  revelation  from  Sinai.  It  is 
enough,  at  this  stage  of  our  inquiry,  to  have  exhibited  the 
foundation  laid  for  the  perpetual  celebration  of  a  seventh-day 
Sabbath,  in  the  original  act  of  God  at  the  close  of  His  crea- 
tion work  In  that  we  have  a  foundation  broad  and  large 
as  the  theatre  of  creation  itself,  and  the  general  interests  of 
humanity,  free  from  all  local  restrictions  and  national  peculi- 
arities. That  in  the  infancy  of  the  world,  and  during  the 
ages  of  a  remote  antiquity,  there  would  be  much  simplicity 
in  the  mode  of  its  observance,  may  readily  be  supposed 


THE  SABBATICAL  INSTITUTION.  263 

Indeed,  where  all  was  so  simple,  both  in  the  state  of  Bociety 
and  the  institutions  of  worship,  the  symbolical  act  itself  of 
resting  from  ordinary  work,  and  in  connection  with  that,  the 
habit  of  recognizing  the  authority  of  God,  and  realizing  the 
divine  call  to  a  participation  in  the  blessed  rest  of  the  Creator, 
must  have  constituted  no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  practical 
observance  of  the  day.  And  that  this  also  in  process  of  time 
should  have  fallen  into  general  desuetude,  is  only  what  might 
have  been  expected  from  the  fearful  depravity  and  lawless- 
ness which  overspread  the  earth  as  a  desolation.  When  men 
daringly  cast  off  the  fear  of  God  Himself,  they  would  natur- 
ally make  light  of  the  privilege  and  duty  set  before  them  of 
entering  into  His  rest.  And  considering  how  partial  and 
imperfect  the  observance  of  the  day,  in  the  earlier  periods 
of  the  world's  history,  was  likely  to  become,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at,  that,  besides  the  original  record  of  its  divine 
origin  and  authoritative  obligation,  traces  of  its  existence 
should  be  found  only  in  some  scattered  notices  of  history, 
and  in  the  widespread  sacredness  of  the  number  seven,  which 
has  left  its  impress  on  the  religion  and  literature  of  nearly 
every  nation  of  antiquity.  But  however  neglected  or  de- 
spised, the  original  fact  remains  for  the  light  and  instruc- 
tion of  the  world  in  all  ages;  and  there  perpetually  comes 
forth  from  it  a  call  from  every  one  who  has  ears  to  hear,  to 
sanctify  a  weekly  rest  unto  the  Lord,  and  rise  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  His  blessing. 


CHAPTER  SIXTH. 

TYPICAL    THINGS    IN    HISTORY    DURING    THE    PROGRESS    OP    THE    FIRST 
DISPENSATION. 

HAVING  now  considered  the  typical  bearing  of  the  funda- 
mental facts  and  symbolical  institutions  belonging  to  the 
first  dispensation  of  grace,  it  remains  that  we  endeavor  to 
ascertain  what  there  might  afterwards  be  evolved  of  a  typical 
nature  during  the  progress  of  that  dispensation,  by  means  of 
the  transactions  and  events  that  took  place  under  it.  These, 
it  was  already  noted  in  our  preliminary  remarks,  could  only 
be  employed  to  administer  instruction  of  a  subsidiary  kind. 
In  their  remoter  reference  to  Gospel  times,  as  in  their  direct 
historical  aspect,  they  can  rank  no  higher  than  progressive 
developments — not  laying  a  foundation,  but  proceeding  on 
the  foundation  already  laid,  and  giving  to  some  of  the  points 
connected  with  it  a  more  specific  direction,  or  supplementing 
them  with  additional  discoveries  of  the  mind  and  will  of  Goo:. 
It  is  impossible  here,  any  more  than  in  the  subjects  treated 
of  in  the  preceding  chapters,  to  isolate  entirely  the  portions 
that  have  a  typical  bearing  from  others  closely  connected 
with  them.  And  even  in  those  which  exhibit  something  of 
the  typical  element,  it  can  scarcely  be  expected,  at  so  earfy  a 
period  in  the  world's  history,  to  possess  much  of  a  precise 
and  definite  character ;  for  in  type,  as  in  prophecy,  the  prog- 
ress must  necessarily  have  been  from  the  more  general  to 
the  more  particular.  In  tracing  this  progress,  we  shall  nat- 
urally connect  the  successive  developments  with  single  per- 
sons or  circumstances;  yet  without  meaning  thereby  to  in- 
dicate that  these  are  in  every  respect  to  be  accounted  typical 


SECTION   FJKST. 

THE  SEED  OF  PROMISE ABEL,  ENOCH. 

THE  first  distinct  appearance  of  the  typical  in  connection 
with  the  period  subsequent  to  the  fall,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
case  of  Abel ;  but  in  that  quite  generally.  Abel  was  the  first 
member  of  the  promised  seed ;  and  through  him  supplemen- 
tary knowledge  was  imparted  more  especially  in  one  direc- 
tion, viz.,  in  regard  to  the  principle  of  election,  which  was  prac- 
tically to  discover  itself  in  connection  with  the  original  promise. 
That  promise  itself,  when  read  in  the  light  of  the  instituted 
symbols  of  religion,  might  be  perceived — if  very  thoughtfully 
considered — to  have  implied  something  of  an  elective  process ; 
but  the  truth  was  not  clearly  expressed.  And  it  was  most  nat- 
ural that  the  first  parents  of  the  human  family  should  have 
overlooked  what  but  obscurely  intimated  a  limitation  in  the 
expected  good.  They  would  readily  imagine,  when  a  scheme 
of  grace  was  introduced,  which  gave  promise  of  a  complete 
destruction  of  the  adversary,  with  the  infliction  only  of  a 
partial  injury  on  the  woman's  seed,  that  the  whole  of  their 
offspring  should  attain  to  victory  over  the  power  of  evil. 
This  joyous  anticipation  affectingly  discovers  itself  in  the 
exclamation  of  Eve  at  the  birth  of  her  first-born  son,  "  I  have 
gotten  a  man  from  (or,  as  it  should  rather  be,  with)  the  Lord  " 
— gratefully  acknowledging  the  hand  of  God  in  giving  her, 
as  she  thought,  the  commencement  of  that  seed  which  was 
assured  through  divine  grace  of  a  final  triumph.  This  she 
reckoned  a  real  getting — gain  in  the  proper  sense — calling 
her  child  by  a  name  that  expressed  this  idea  (Cain);  and  she 
evidently  did  so  by  regarding  it  as  the  precious  gift  of  God, 
the  beginning  and  the  pledge  of  the  ascendency  that  was  to 
be  won  over  the  malice  of  the  tempter.1  Never  was  mother 

1  I  think  it  quite  impossible,  in  the  circumstances,  that  the  faith  of  Eve 
should  have  gone  further  than  this,  as  the  promise  of  recovery  had  as  yet 
assumed  only  the  moat  general  aspect;  and  though  it  might  well  have  been 
understood  to  depend  upon  the  grace  and  power  of  God  for  its  accomplish- 


266  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUKE. 

destined  to  receive  a  sorer  disappointment.  She  did  not  want 
faith  in  the  divine  word;  but  her  faith  was  still  without 
knowledge,  and  she  must  learn  by  painful  experience  how 
the  plan  of  God  for  man's  recovery  was  to  be  wrought  out 
A  like  ignorance,  though  tending  now  in  the  opposite  direc 
tion,  was  perhaps  manifested  at  the  birth  of  Abel,  whose 
name  (breath,  emptiness)  seems,  as  Delitzsch  has  remarked, 
to  have  proceeded  from  her  felt  regard  to  the  divine  curse, 
as  that  given  to  Cain  did  from  a  Tike  regard  to  the  divine 
promise.  It  is  possible  that,  between  the  births  of  the  two 
brothers,  what  she  had  seen  of  the  helpless  and  suffering  con- 
dition of  infancy  in  the  first-born  may  have  impressed  the 
mind  of  Eve  with  such  a  sense  of  the  evils  entailed  upon  her 
offspring  by  the  curse,  as  to  have  rendered  her  for  the  time 
forgetful  of  the  better  things  disclosed  in  the  promise.  It  is 
also  possible,  and  every  way  probable,  that  the  name  by  which 
this  child  is  known  to  history,  and  which  is  not,  as  in  the 
case  of  Cain,  expressly  connected  with  his  birth,  may  have 
been  occasioned  by  his  unhappy  fate,  and  expressed  the  feel- 
ings of  vexation  and  disappointment  which  it  awakened  in 
the  bosoms  of  his  parents.  However  it  might  be,  the  result 
at  least  showed  now  little  the  operations  of  grace  were  to 
pursue  the  course  that  might  seem  accordant  with  the  views 
and  feelings  of  nature.  In  particular,  it  showed  that,  so  far 
from  the  whole  offspring  of  the  woman  being  included,  there 
was  from  the  first  to  pervade  the  divine  plan  a  principle  of 
selection,  in  virtue  of  which  a  portion  only,  and  that  by  no 
means  the  likeliest,  according  to  the  estimation  of  nature, 
were  to  inherit  the  blessing;  while  the  rest  should  fall  in 
with  the  designs  of  the  tempter,  and  be  reckoned  to  him  for 
a  seed  of  cursing.  Abel,  therefore,  in  his  acceptance  with 

ment,  yet  who,  from  the  revelations  actually  given,  could  have  anticipated 
these  to  manifest  themselves  in  the  birth  of  Jehovah  Himself  as  a  babe  ?  The 
supposition  of  Baumgarten, — who  here  revives  the  old  explanation,  "I  have 
gotten  a  man,  Jehovah," — that  Eve  thought  she  saw  in  Cain  "the  redeeming 
and  coming  God,"  is  arbitrary  and  incredible.  The  nirp  ]•)&$  should  be  taken 

as  in  cb.  v.  24,  yi.  9,  -rliii-  16,  Judg.  i.  16,  with,  in  fellowship  with,  the  Lord; 
or  as  in  Judg.  viii.  7,  with,  with  the  help  of.  The  former  idea  seems  to  be  the 
more  natural  one,  as  in  that  sense  also  the  DK  is  more  frequently  used.  The 

assertion  of  Dr.  Pye  Smith  ( Testimony,  vol.  .  p.  228),  that  there  "seems  no 
option  to  an  interpreter  who  is  resolved  to  follow  the  fair  and  strict  gram- 
matical signification  of  the  words  before  him,  but  to  translate  the  passage,  I 
have  obtained  a  man,  Jehovah,"  is  greatly  top  strong,  and  against  the  judg- 
ment of  the  best  Hebrew  scholars.  He  is  himself  obliged  to  repudiate  the 
sense  which  such  a  rendering  yields,  as  embodying  too  gross  a  conception; 
and  the  idea  which  he  thinks  Eve  meant  to  express  of  "  something  connected 
with  the  Divine  Being  "  in  the  child  produced,  is  simply  what  is  conveyed 
by  the  perfectly  legitimate  rendering  we  have  preferred. 


THE  SEED  OP  PROMISE.  267 

Grod,  in  his  faith  respecting  the  divine  purposes,  a  ad  his  pre- 
sentation of  offerings  that  drew  down  the  divine  favoi,  stands 
as  the  type  of  a  chosen  seed  of  blessing — a  seed  that  was 
ultimately  to  have  its  root  and  its  culmination  in  Him  who 
was  to  be  in  a  sense  altogether  peculiar  the  child  of  promise. 
In  Cain,  on  the  other  hand,  the  impersonation  of  nature's 
pride,  waywardness,  and  depravity,  mere  appeared  a  repre- 
sentative of  that  unhappy  portion  of  mankind  who  should 
espouse  the  interest  of  the  adversary,  and  seek  by  unhal- 
lowed means  to  establish  it  in  the  world. 

The  brief  notices  of  antediluvian  history  are  evidently 
framed  for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  the  antagonistic  state 
and  tendencies  of  these  two  seeds,  and  of  rendering  manifest 
the  mighty  difference  which  God's  work  of  grace  was  des- 
tined to  make  in  the  character  and  prospects  of  man.  The 
name  given  by  Eve  to  her  third  son  (Seth,  appointed),  with 
the  reason  assigned  for  it,  "  For  God,  said  she,  nath  appointed 
me  another  seed  instead  of  Abel,  whom  Cain  slew,"  bespoke 
the  insight  the  common  mother  of  mankind  had  now  obtained 
into  this  mournful  divison  in  her  offspring.  Cain  she  regards 
as  having,  in  a  manner,  ceased  to  belong  to  her  seed;  he  had 
become  too  plainly  identified  with  that  of  the  adversary.  He 
seems  now  to  her  view  to  stand  at  the  head  of  a  God-oppos- 
ing interest  in  the  world ;  and  as  in  contrast  to  him,  the  de- 
stroyer of  the  true  seed,  God  is  seen  mercifully  providing 
another  in  its  room.1  So  that  there  were  again  the  two 
seeds  in  the  world,  each  taking  root,  and  bringing  forth  fruit 
after  its  kind.  But  how  different !  On  the  one  hand  appears 
the  Cainite  section,  smitten  with  the  curse  of  sin,  yet  proudly 
shunning  the  path  of  reconciliation — retiring  to  a  distance 
from  the  emblems  of  God's  manifested  presence — building  a 
city,  as  if  to  lighten,  by  the  aid  of  human  artifice  and  protec- 

1  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  both  the  parents  of  the  human  family, 
Adam  as  well  as  Eve,  are  associated  with  this  seed  of  blessing.  It  is  a  cir- 
cumstance that  has  been  too  much  overlooked ;  but  for  the  very  purpose  of 
marking  it,  a  fresh  commencement  is  made  at  Gen.  v.  of  the  genealogical 
chain  that  links  together  Adam  and  Christ:  "  This  is  the  book  of  the  genera- 
tions of  Adam.  In  the  day  that  God  created  man,  in  the  likeness  of  God 
made  He  him.  .  .  .  And  Adam  lived  an  hundred  and  thirty  years,  and 
begat  a  son  in  his  own  likeness,  after  his  image,  and  called  his  name  Seth;" 
• — as  if  his  progeny  before  this  were  not  to  be  reckoned — the  child  of  grace 
had  perished,  and  the  other  in  a  spiritual  sense  was  not.  Adam,  therefore,  is 
here  distinctly  placed  at  the  head  of  a  spiritual  offspring — himself,  with  his 
partner,  the  first  link  in  the  grand  chain  of  blessing.  And  the  likeness  in 
which  he  begat  his  son — "his  own  image  "—must  not  be  limited,  as  it  too 
often  is,  to  the  corruption  that  now  marred  the  purity  of  his  nature — as  if  hia 
image  stood  simply  in  contrast  to  God's.  It  is  as  the  parental  head  of  the 
whole  lineage  of  believers  that  he  is  represented,  and  such  a  sharp  contrast 
would  here  especially  be  out  of  place. 


268  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

tion,  the  evils  of  a  guilty  conscience  and  a  blighted  condition 
— cultivating  with  success  the  varied  elements  of  natural 
strength  and  worldly  greatness,  inventing  instruments  of 
music  and  weapons  of  war,  trampling  under  foot,  as  seemed 
good  to  the  flesh,  the  authority  of  Heaven  and  the  rights  of 
men,  and  at  last,  by  deeds  of  titanic  prowess  and  violence, 
boldly  attempting  to  bring  heaven  and  earth  alike  under  its 
sway.1  On  the  other  hand  appears  the  woman's  seed  of  prom- 
ise, seeking  to  establish  and  propagate  itself  in  the  earth  by 
the  fear  of  God,  and  the  more  regular  celebration  of  His 
worship,*  trusting  for  its  support  in  the  grace  and  blessing 
of  God,  as  the  other  did  in  the  powers  and  achievements  of 
corrupt  nature;  and  BO  continuing  uninterrupted  its  line  of 
godly  descendants,  yet  against  such  fearful  odds,  and  at  last 
witli  such  a  perilous  risk  of  utter  extinction,  that  divine  faith- 
fulness and  love  required  to  meet  violence  with  violence,  and 
bring  the  conflict  in  its  first  form  to  a  close  by  the  sweeping 
desolation  of  the  flood.  It  terminated,  as  every  such  conflict 
must  do,  on  the  side  of  those  who  stood  in  the  promised 
grace  and  revealed  testimony  of  God.  These  alone  have 
an  abiding  place;  and  the  triumph  of  such  as  are  opposed 
to  them  can  be  but  for  a  moment. 

This  seed  of  the  woman,  however, — the  seed  that  is  given 
to  her  as  the  mother  of  a  believing  and  conquering  offspring, 
— is  found,  not  only  as  to  its  existence,  to  be  associated  with  a 
principle  of  election,  but  also  as  to  the  relative  place,  occupied 
by  particular  members  in  its  line.  All  have  by  faith  an  inter- 
est in  God,  and  in  consequence  triumph  over  the  power  of  the 

1  Gen.  iv.  13-24,  vi.  4-6.  It  is  in  connection  with  this  later  development 
of  evil  in  the  Cainites  that  Lamech's  song  is  introduced,  and  with  special 
reference  to  that  portion  of  his  family  who  were  makers  of  instruments  in 
brass  and  iron — instruments,  no  doubt,  chiefly  of  a  warlike  kind.  It  is  only 
by  viewing  the  song  in  that  connection  that  we  perceive  its  full  meaning  and 
its  proper  place,  as  intended  to  indicate  that  the  evil  was  approaching  its  final 
stage:  "  And  Lamech  said  to  his  wives,  Adah  and  Zillah,  hear  my  voice;  ye 
wives  of  Lamech,  hearken  to  my  speech:  for  men  (the  word  is  quite  indefi- 
nite in  the  original,  and  may  most  fitly  be  rendered  in  the  plural)  I  slay  for 
my  wound,  and  young  men  for  my  hurt:  for  Gain  is  avenged  seven  times,  and 
Lamech  seventy  times  seven."  He  means  apparently,  that,  with  such  weapons 
as  he  now  had  at  command,  he  could  execute  at  will  deeds  of  retaliation  and 
slaughter.  So  that  his  song  may  be  regarded,  to  use  the  words  of  Drechsler, 
"as  an  ode  of  triumph  on  the  invention  of  the  sword.  He  stands  at  the  top 
of  the  Cainite  development,  from  thence  looks  back  upon  the  past,  and  ex- 
ults at  the  height  it  has  reached.  How  far  has  he  got  ahead  of  Cain  !  what 
another  sort  of  ancestor  he  !  No  longer  needing  to  look  up  in  feebleness  to 
God  for  protection,  he  can  provide  more  amply  for  it  himself  than  God  did 
for  Cain's;  and  he  congratulates  his  wives  on  being  the  mothers  of  such  sons. 
Thus  the  history  of  the  Cainites  began  with  a  deed  of  murder,  and  here  it 
inds  with  a  song  of  murder." 

-  Gen.  iv.  26. 


THE  SEED  OF  PROMISE.  269 

adversary.  But  some  have  a  larger  interest  than  others,  tind 
attain  to  a  higher  victory.  There  was  an  election  within  the 
election.  So  it  appeared  especially  in  the  case  of  Enoch,  the 
seventh  from  Adam,  and  again  in  Noah,  who,  as  they  alone 
of  the  antediluvians  were  endowed  with  the  spirit  of  prophecy, 
so  they  alone  also  are  said  to  have  "  walked  with  God,  l — an 
expression  never  used  of  any  who  lived  in  later  times,  and 
denoting  the  nearest  and  most  confidential  intercourse,  as  if 
they  had  all  but  regained  the  old  paradisiacal  freedom  of 
communion  with  Heaven.  And  as  the  divine  seal  upon  this 
higher  elevation  of  the  life  of  God  in  their  souls,  they  were 
both  honored  with  singular  tokens  of  distinction — the  one 
having  been  taken,  without  tasting  of  death,  to  still  nearer 
fellowship  with  God,  to  abide  in  His  immediate  presence  ("  He 
was  not,  for  God  took  him"),  while  the  other  became  under 
God  the  saviour  and  father  of  a  new  world.  Of  the  latter  we 
shall  have  occasion  to  speak  separately,  as  there  were  connect- 
ed with  his  case  other  elements  of  a  typical  nature.  But  in 
regard  to  Enoch,  as  the  short  and  pregnant  notice  of  his  life, 
and  of  his  removal  out  of  it,  plainly  indicates  something 
transcendently  good  and  great,  so,  we  can  not  doubt,  the  con- 
temporaries of  the  patriarch  knew  it  to  be  such.  They  knew 
— at  least  they  had  within  their  reach  the  means  of  knowing 
— that  in  consideration  of  his  eminent  piety,  and  of  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time  in  which  he  lived,  he  was  taken  direct 
to  a  higher  sphere,  without  undergoing  the  common  lot  of 
mortality.  That  there  should  have  been  but  one  such  case 
during  the  whole  antediluvian  period,  could  not  but  be  re- 
garded as  indicating  its  exceptional  character,  and  stamping 
it  the  more  emphatically  as  a  revelation  from  Heaven.  Nor 
could  the  voice  it  uttered  in  the  ears  of  reflecting  men  sound 
otherwise  than  as  a  proclamation  that  God  was  assuredly 
with  that  portion  of  the  woman's  seed  who  served  and 
honored  Him — that  He  manifested  Himself  to  such,  as  a 
chosen  people,  in  another  manner  than  He  did  to  the  world, 
and  made  them  sure  of  a  complete  and  final  victory  over  all 
the  malice  of  the  tempter  and  the  evils  of  sin.  If  not  usually 
without  death,  yet  notwithstanding  it,  and  through  it,  they 
should  certainly  attain  to  eternal  life  in  the  presence  of  God. 
In  this  respect  Enoch — as  being  the  most  distinguished 
member  of  the  seed  of  blessing  in  its  earlier  division,  and  the 
most  honored  heir  of  that  life  which  comes  through  the 
righteousness  of  faith — is  undoubtedly  to  be  viewed  as  a 
type  of  Christ.  Something  he  had  in  common  with  the  line 

Gen.  v.  22,  vi.  9. 


270  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUBE. 

as  a  whole — he  was  a  partaker  of  that  electing  mercy  and 
grace  of  God,  in  virtue  of  which  alone  any  could  rise  from 
the  condemnation  of  sin  to  the  inheritance  of  life  in  the 
divine  kingdom.  But  apart  from  others  in  the  same  line, 
and  above  them,  he  passed  to  the  inheritance  by  a  more  direct 
and  triumphant  path — a  conqueror  in  the  very  mode  of  his 
transition  from  time  to  eternity.  These  characteristics,  which 
in  Enoch's  case  were  broadly  marked,  are  pre-eminently  the 
characteristics  of  Christ,  and  in  the  full  and  absolute  sense 
could  be  found  only  in  Him.  He  is,  incomparably  beyond 
every  other,  the  seed  of  the  woman,  who  in  God's  everlasting 
purpose  was  destined  to  bruise  the  head  of  the  tempter,  and 
reverse  the  process  of  nature's  corruption.  In  Him,  as  pres- 
ent from  the  first  to  the  "  determinate  counsel  arid  foreknowl- 
edge of  God,"  was  the  ultimate  root  of  such  a  seed  to  be  found 
which  should  otherwise  have  had  no  existence  in  the  world. 
He  therefore,  beyond  all  others,  was  the  chosen  of  God,  "  His 
elect  in  whom  His  soul  delights."  And  though  to  the  eve 
of  a  carnal  and  superficial  world,  which  judges  only  by  the 
appearance,  He  wanted  what  seemed  necessary  to  justify  His 
claim  to  such  a  position,  yet  He  in  reality  gave  the  clearest 
proof  of  it,  by  a  faith  that  never  faltered  in  the  hardest  trials,  a 
righteousness  free  from  every  stain  of  impurity,  and  a  life 
that  could  only  for  a  moment  underlie  the  cloud  of  death, 
and  even  then  could  see  no  corruption,  but  presently  rose,  as 
to  its  proper  home,  into  the  regions  of  eternal  fight  and 
glory. 

With  our  eyes  resting  on  this  exalted  object  in  the  ends 
of  time,  we  have  no  difficulty  in  perceiving,  that  what  ap- 
peared of  supernatural  in  such  men  as  Abel  and  Enoch,  only 
foreshadowed  the  higher  and  greater  good  that  was  to  come. 
The  foreshadowing,  however,  was  not  such  that,  from  the  ap- 
pearance of  Abel  and  Enoch,  a  personal  Messiah  could  have 
been  descried,  or  as  if,  from  the  incidents  in  their  respec- 
tive lives,  precisely  similar  ones  might  have  been  inferred  as 
likely  to  happen  in  the  eventful  career  of  the  man  Christ 
Jesus.  We  could  not  descend  thus  to  individual  and  per- 
sonal marks  of  coincidence  between  the  lives  of  those  early 
patriarchs  and  the  life  of  Messiah,  without,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, anticipating  the  order  of  Providence,  which  had  not 
yet  directed  the  eye  of  faith  and  hope  to  a  personal  manifes- 
tation of  Godhead,  and  then  entangling  ourselves  in  endless 
difficulties  of  practical  adjustment— as  in  the  case  of  Enoch's 
translation,  who  went  to  heaven  without  tasting  death,  while 
Christ  could  not  enter  into  glory  till  He  Jiad  tasted  it.  But 
let  those  patriarchs  be  contemplated  as  the  earlier  links  of  a 


THE  SEED  OF  PKOMISE.  271 

chain  which,  from  its  very  nature,  must  have  some  higher 
and  nobler  termination;  let  them  be  viewed  as  characters 
that  already  bore  upon  them  the  lineaments  and  possessed 
the  beginnings  of  the  new  creation :  what  do  they  then  ap- 
pear but  embodied  prophecies  of  a  more  general  kind  in  re- 
spect to  "  Him  who  was  to  come  "  ?  They  heralded  His  future 
redemptive  work  by  exhibiting  in  part  the  signs  and  fruits 
of  its  prospective  achievements.  The  beginning  was  pro- 
phetic of  the  end ;  for  if  the  one  had  not  been  in  prospect, 
the  other  should  not  have  come  into  existence.  And  in  their 
selection  by  God  from  the  general  mass  around  them,  their 
faith  in  God's  word,  and  their  possession  of  God's  favor  and 
blessing,  as  outwardly  displayed  and  manifested  in  their  his- 
tories, we  see  struggling,  as  it  were,  into  being  the  first  ele- 
ments of  that  new  state  and  destiny  which  were  only  to  find 
their  valid  reason,  and  reach  their  proper  elevation,  in  the  per- 
son and  kingdom  of  Messiah. 


SECTION  SECOND. 

NOAH   AND  THE  DELUGE. 

'fan  case  of  Noah,  we  have  already  stated,  embodied  some 
Tjrrr  elements  of  a  typical  kind,  which  gave  to  it  the  charac- 
ter of  a  distinct  stage  in  the  development  of  God's  work  of 
grace  in  the  world.  It  did  so  in  connection  with  the  deluge, 
which  had  a  gracious  as  well  as  a  judicial  aspect,  and,  by  a 
striking  combination  of  opposites,  brought  prominently  out 
the  principle,  that  the  accomplishment  of  salvation  necessarily 
carries  along  with  it  a  work  of  destruction.  This  was  not  abso- 
lutely a  new  principle  at  the  period  of  the  deluge.  It  had  a 
place  in  the  original  promise,  and  a  certain  exemplification  in 
the  lives  of  believers  from  the  first.  By  giving  to  the  pros- 
pect of  recovery  the  peculiar  form  of  a  bruising  of  the  tempt- 
er's head,  the  Lord  plainly  intimated,  that  somehow  a  work 
of  destruction  was  to  go  along  with  the  work  of  salvation, 
and  was  necessary  to  its  accomplishment.  No  indication, 
however,  was  given  of  the  way  in  which  this  twofold  process 
was  to  proceed,  or  of  the  nature  of  the  connection  between 
the  one  part  of  it  and  the  other.  But  light  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent soon  began  to  be  thrown  upon  it  by  the  consciousness  in 
each  man's  bosom  of  a  struggle  between  the  evil  and  the 
good — a  struggle  which  so  early  as  the  time  of  Cain  drew 
forth  the  solemn  warning,  that  either  his  better  part  must 
vindicate  for  itself  the  superiority,  or  it  must  itself  fall  down 
vanquished  by  the  destroyer.  Still  further  light  appeared, 
when  the  contending  elements  grew  into  two  great  contend- 
ing parties,  which  by  an  ever- widening  breach,  and  at  length 
by  most  serious  encroachments  from  the  evil  on  the  good, 
rendered  a  work  of  judgment  from  above  necessary  to  the 
peace  and  safety  of  the  believing  portion  of  mankind.  The 
conviction  of  some  approaching  crisis  of  this  nature  had  be- 
come so  deep  in  the  time  of  Enoch,  that  it  gave  utterance  to 
itself  in  the  prophecy  ascribed  in  the  Epistle  of  Jude  to  that 
patriarch :  "  Behold,  the  Lord  cometh  with  ten  thousand  of 


NOAH  AND  THE  DELUGE.  273 

His  saints,  to  execute  judgment  upon  all,  and  to  convince  all 
that  are  ungodly  among  them  of  all  their  ungodly  deeds 
which  they  have  ungodly  committed,  and  of  all  their  hard 
speeches  which  ungodly  sinners  have  committed  against 
Him."  The  struggle,  it  was  thus  announced,  should  ere  long 
end  in  a  manifestation  of  God  for  judgment  against  the 
apostate  faction,  and,  by  implication,  for  deliverance  to  the 
children  of  faith  and  hope. 

By  the  period  of  Noah's  birth,  however,  the  necessity  of  a 
divine  interposition  had  become  much  greater,  and  it  appeared 
manifest  to  the  small  remnant  of  believers  that  the  era  of  ret- 
ribution, which  they  now  identified  with  the  era  of  deliver- 
ance, must  be  at  hand.  Indication  was  then  given  of  this 
state  of  feeling  by  the  name  itself  of  Noah,  with  the  reason 
assigned  for  its  adoption,  "This  same  shall  comfort  us  con- 
cerning our  work  and  toil  of  our  hands,  because  of  the  ground 
which  the  Lord  hath  cursed."  The  feeling  is  too  generaljy 
expressed,  to  enable  us  to  determine  with  accuracy  how  the 
parents  of  this  child  might  expect  their  troubles  to  be  relieved 
through  his  instrumentality.  But  in  their  words  we  hear,  at 
least,  the  groaning  of  the  oppressed — the  sighing  of  right- 
eous souls,  vexed  on  account  of  the  evils  which  were  thick- 
ening around  them,  from  the  unrestrained  wickedness  of 
those  who  had  corrupted  the  earth ;  and,  at  the  same  time, 
not  despairing,  but  looking  up  in  faith,  and  even  confident 
that  in  the  lifetime  of  that  child  the  God  of  righteousness 
and  truth  would  somehow  avenge  the  cause  of  His  elect. 
Whether  thev  had  obtained  any  correct  insight  or  not  into 
the  way  by  which  the  object  was  to  be  accomplished,  the  event 
proved  that  the  spirit  of  prophecy  breathed  in  their  anticipa- 
tion. Their  faith  rested  upon  solid  grounds,  and  in  the  hope 
which  it  led  them  to  cherish  they  were  not  disappointed.  Sal- 
vation did  come  in  connection  with  the  person  of  Noah,  and 
it  came  in  the  way  of  an  overwhelming  visitation  of  wrath 
upon  the  adversaries. 

When  we  look  simply  at  the  outward  results  produced  by 
that  remarkable  visitation,  they  appear  to  have  been  twofold 
— on  the  one  side  preservation,  on  the  other  destruction.  But 
when  we  look  a  little  more  closely,  we  perceive  that  there  was 
a  necessary  connection  between  the  two  results,  and  that  there 
was  properly  but  one  object  aimed  at  in  the  dispensation, 
though  in  accomplishing  it  there  was  required  the  operation 
of  a  double  process.  That  object  was,  in  the  words  of  St.  Pe- 
ter, "  the  saving  of  Noah  and  his  house  " — saving  them  as  the 
spiritual  seed  of  God.  But  saving  them  from  what?  Not 
surely  from  the  violence  and  desolation  of  the  waters ;  for  the 
VOL.  i. — 1# 


274  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBTPTtJEE. 

watery  element  would  then  have  acted  as  the  preservative 
against  itself,  and  instead  of  being  saved  by  the  water,  accord- 
ing to  the  apostolic  statement,  the  family  of  Noah  would  have 
been  saved  from  it.1  From  what,  then,  were  they  saved  ? 
Undoubtedly  from  that  which,  before  the  coming  of  the  del- 
uge, formed  the  real  element  of  danger — the  corruption,  enmi- 
ty, and  violence  of  ungodly  men.  It  was  this  which  wasted 
the  Church  of  God,  and  brought  it  to  the  verge  of  destruc- 
tion. All  was  ready  to  perish.  The  cause  of  righteousness 
had  at  length  but  one  efficient  representative  in  the  person  of 
Noah;  and  he  much  "like  a  lodge  in  a  garden  of  cucumbers, 
like  a  besieged  city," — the  object  of  profane  mockery  and 
scorn,  .taunted,  reviled,  plied  with  every  weapon  fitted  to 
overcome  his  constancy,  and,  if  not  in  himself,  at  least  in  his 
family,  in  danger  of  suffering  shipwreck  amid  the  swelling 
waves  of  wickedness  around  him.  It  was  to  save  him — and 
with  him,  the  cause  of  God— from  this  source  of  imminent 
danger  and  perdition,  that  the  flood  was  sent ;  and  it  could 

1 1  Pet.  iii.  20.  I  am  aware  many  eminent  scholars  give  a  different  turn  to 
this  expression  in  the  first  Epistle  of  Peter,  and  take  the  proper  rendering  to 
be,  "saved  through  <t.  e.,  in  the  midst  of)  the  water"— contemplating  the 
water  as  the  space  or  region  through  which  the  ark  was  required  to  bear 
Noah  and  his  family  in  safety.  So  Beza,  who  says  that  "the  water  can  not 
be  taken  for  the  instrumental  cause,  as  Noah  was  preserved  from  the  water,  not 
by  it";  so  also  Titmann,  Sib.  Cab.,  vol.  xviii.  p.  251;  Steiger  in  his  Comm., 
with  only  a  mimite  shade  of  difference;  Kobinson,  in  Lex.,  and  many  others. 
But  this  view  is  open  to  the  following  objections:  1.  The  water  is  here  men- 
tioned, not  in  respect  to  its  wide  diffusion,  or  to  the  extent  of  its  territory 
from  one  point  to  another,  but  simply  as  an  instrumental  agent.  Had  the 
former  been  meant,  the  expression  would  have  been,  "saved  through  the 
waters,"  rather  than  saved  by  water.  But  as  the  case  stood,  it  mattered 
nothing  whether  the  ark  remained  stationary  at  one  point  on  the  surface  of 
the  waters,  or  was  borne  from  one  place  to  another;  so  that  through,  in  the 
sense  of  passing  through,  or  through  among,  gives  a  quite  unsuitable  meaning. 
That  Noah  needed  to  be  saved  from  the  water,  rather  than  by  it,  is  a  super- 
ficial objection,  proceeding  on  the  supposition  that  the  water  had  the  same 
relation  to  Noah  that  it  had  to  the  world  in  general.  For  him  the  water  and 
the  ark  were  essentially  connected  together;  it  took  both  to  make  up  the 
means  of  deliverance.  In  the  same  sense,  and  on  the  same  account,  we 
might  say  of  the  Red  Sea,  that  the  Israelites  were  saved  by  it;  for  though  in 
itself  a  source  of  danger,  yet,  as  regarded  Israel's  position,  it  was  really  the 
means  of  safety  (1  Cor.  x.  2).  2.  The  application  made  by  the  apostle  of 
Noah's  preservation  requires  the  agency  of  the  water  as  well  as  of  the  ark  to 
be  taken  into  account.  Indeed,  according  to  several  authorities  (which  read 
5  >tai),  the  reference  in  the  antitype  is  specially  to  the  water  as  the  type. 
Bat  apart  from  that,  baptism  is  spoken  of  as  a  saving,  in  consequence  of  its 
being  a  purifying  ordinance,  which  implies,  as  in  the  deluge,  that  the  salvation 
be  accomplished  through  means  of  a  destruction.  This  is  virtually  admitted 
by  Steiger,  who,  though  he  adopts  the  rendering  "through  the  water,"  yet  in 
explaining  the  connection  between  the  type  and  the  antitype,  is  obliged  to 
regard  the  water  as  also  instrumental  to  salvation.  "  The  flood  was  for  Noah 
a  baptism,  and  as  such  saved;  the  same  element,  water,  also  saves  us  now — 
not,  however,  as  mere  water,  but  in  the  same  quality  as  a  baptism." 


NOAH  AND  THE  DELUGE.  276 

only  do  so  by  effectually  separating  between  him  and  the  seed 
of  evil-doers — engulfing  them  in  ruin,  and  sustaining  him  un- 
injured in  his  temporary  home.  So  that  the  deluge,  consid- 
ered as  Noah's  baptism,  or  the  means  of  his  salvation  from  an 
outward  form  of  spiritual  danger,  was  not  less  essentially  con- 
nected with  a  work  of  judgment  than  with  an  act  of  mercy. 
It  was  by  the  one  that  the  other  was  accomplished ;  and  the 
support  of  the  ark  on  the  bosom  of  the  waters  was  only  a 
collateral  object  of  the  deluge.  The  direct  and  immediate 
object  was  the  extermination  of  that  wicked  race  whose 
heaven-daring  impiety  and  hopeless  impenitence  was  the 
real  danger  that  menaced  the  cause  and  people  of  God, — 
"  the  destroying  of  those  (to  use  the  language  that  evidently 
refers  to  it  in  Rev.  xi.  18)  who  destroyed  the  earth." 

This  principle  of  salvation  with  destruction,  which  found 
such  a  striking  exemplification  in  the  deluge,  has  been  contin- 
ually appearing  anew  in  the  history  of  God's  dealings  among 
men.  It  appeared,  for  example,  at  the  period  of  Israel's  re- 
demption from  Egypt,  when  a  way  of  escape  was  opened  for 
the  people  of  God  by  the  overthrow  of  Pharaoh  and  his  host ; 
and  again  at  the  era  of  the  return  from  Babylon,  when  the 
destruction  of  the  enemy  and  the  oppressor  broke  asunder  the 
bands  with  which  the  children  of  the  covenant  were  held  cap- 
tive. But  it  is  in  New  Testament  times,  and  in  connection 
with  the  work  of  Christ,  that  the  higher  manifestation  of  the 
principle  appears.  Here  alone  perfection  can  be  said  to  belong 
to  it.  Complete  as  the  work  in  one  respect  was  in  the  days  of 
Noah,  in  another  it  soon  gave  unmistakable  evidence  of  its 
own  imperfection.  The  immediate  danger  was  averted  by  the 
destruction  of  the  wicked  in  the  waters  of  a  deluge,  and  the 
safe  preservation  of  Noah  and  his  family  as  a  better  seed  to 
replenish  the  depopulated  earth.  But  it  was  soon  found  that 
the  old  leaven  still  lurked  in  the  bosom  of  the  preserved  rem- 
nant itself;  and  another  race  of  apostates  and  destroyers, 
though  of  a  less  ferocious  spirit,  and  under  more  of  restraint 
in  regard  to  deeds  of  violence  and  bloodshed,  rose  up  to  prose- 
cute  anew  the  work  of  the  adversary.  In  Christ,  however, 
the  very  foundations  of  evil  from  the  first  were  struck  at,  and 
nothing  is  left  for  a  second  beginning  to  the  cause  of  iniquity. 
He  came,  as  foretold  by  the  prophet  Isaiah,1  "  to  proclaim  the 
acceptable  year  of  the  Lord,  and  the  day  of  vengeance  of  our 
God,"  which  was,  at  the  same  time,  to  be  the  "  year  of  His  re- 
deemed." And,  accordingly,  by  the  work  He  accomplished 
on  earth,  "  the  prince  of  this  world  was  judged  and  cast  out;  "* 

i  Oh.  IxL  2.  *  John  xiL  3L 


276  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUKE. 

or,  as  it  is  again  written,  "principalities  and  powers  were 
spoiled,"  and  "he  that  had  the  power  of  death  destroyed,  "* — 
thereby  giving  deliverance  to  those  who  were  subject  to  sin 
and  death.  He  did  this  once  for  all,  when  He  fulfilled  all 
righteousness,  and  suffered  unto  death  for  sin.  The  victory 
over  the  tempter  then  achieved  by  Christ  no  more  needs  to  be 
repeated  than  the  atonement  made  for  human  guilt;  it  needs 
to  be  appropriated  merely  by  His  followers,  and  made  effec- 
tual in  their  experience.  Satan  has  no  longer  any  right  to 
exercise  lordship  over  men,  and  hold  them  in  bondage  to  his 
usurped  authority;  the  ground  of  his  power  and  dominion  is 
taken  away,  because  the  condemnation  of  sin,  on  which  it 
stood,  has  been  forever  abolished.  Christ  therefore,  at  once 
destroys  and  saves — saves  by  destroying — casts  the  cruel  op- 
pressor down  from  his  ill-gotten  supremacy,  and  so  relieves 
the  poor,  enthralled,  devil-possessed  nature  of  man,  and  sets 
it  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  God's  children. 

In  the  case  of  the  Redeemer  Himself,  this  work  is  abso- 
lutely complete;  the  man  Christ  Jesus  thoroughly  bruised 
Satan  under  His  feet,  and  won  a  position  where  in  no  re- 
spect whatever  He  could  be  any  more  subject  to  the  power  of 
evil.  Theoretically,  we  may  say,  the  work  is  also  complete 
in  behalf  of  His  people ;  on  His  part,  no  imperfection  cleaves 
to  it.  By  virtue  of  the  blood  01  Jesus,  the  house  of  our  hu- 
manity, which  naturally  stood  accursed  of  God,  and  was 
ready  to  be  assailed  by  every  form  of  evil,  is  placed  on  a  new 
and  better  foundation.  It  is  made  holiness  to  the  Lord.  The 
handwriting  of  condemnation  that  was  against  us  is  blotted 
out.  The  adversary  has  lost  his  bill  of  indictment ;  and  noth- 
ing remains  but  that  the  members  of  the  human  family  should, 
each  for  themselves,  take  up  the  position  secured  for  them  by 
the  salvation  of  Christ,  to  render  them  wholly  and  forever 
superior  to  the  dominion  of  the  adversary.  But  it  is  here 
that  imperfection  still  comes  in.  Men  will  not  lay  hold  of 
the  advantage  obtained  for  them  by  the  all-prevailing  might 
and  energy  of  Jesus,  or  they  will  but  partially  receive  into 
their  experience  the  benefits  it  provides  for  them.  Yet  there 
is  a  measure  of  success  also  here,  in  the  case  of  all  genu- 
ine believers.  And  it  is  to  this  branch  of  the  subject  more 
immediately  that  the  apostle  Peter  points,  when  he  repre- 
sents Christian  baptism  as  the  antitype  of  the  deluge.  In 
the  personal  experience  of  believers,  as  symbolized  in  that 
ordinance,  there  is  a  re-enacting  substantially  of  what  took 
place  in  the  outward  theatre  of  the  world  by  means  of  the 

1  Col.  it  15;  Heb.  ii.  14. 


NOAH  AND  THE  DELUGE.  277 

deluge.  "  The  like  figure  whereunto  (literally,  the  antitype 
to  which,  viz.,  Noah's  salvation  by  water  in  the  ark)  even 
baptism  doth  also  now  save  us ;  not  the  putting  away  of  the 
filth  of  the  flesh,  but  the  answer  of  a  good  conscience  toward 
God,  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ."1  Like  the  apostle's 
delineations  generally,  the  passage  briefly  indicates,  rather 
than  explicitly  unfolds,  the  truths  connected  with  the  sub- 
ject. Yet,  on  a  slight  consideration  of  it,  we  readily  perceive 
that,  with  profound  discernment,  it  elicits  from  the  ordinance 
of  baptism,  as  spiritually  understood  and  applied,  the  same 
fundamental  elements,  discovers  there  the  same  twofold  pro 
cess,  which  appeared  so  strikingly  in  the  case  of  Noah.  Here 
also  there  is  a  salvation  reaching  its  accomplishment  by  means 
of  a  destruction — "  not  the  putting  away  of  the  filth  of  the 
flesh  " — not  so  superficial  a  riddance  of  evil,  but  one  of  a  more 
important  and  vital  character,  bringing  "the  answer  of  a 
good  conscience,"  or  the  deliverance  of  the  soul  from  the  guilt 
and  power  of  iniquity.  The  water  of  baptism — let  the  sub- 
ject be  plunged  in  it  ever  so  deep,  or  sprinkled  ever  so  much 
— can  no  more  of  itself  save  him  than  the  water  of  the  deluge 
could  have  saved  Noah,  apart  from  the  faith  he  possessed, 
and  the  preparation  it  led  him  to  make  in  constructing  and 
entering  into  the  ark.  It  was  because  he  held  and  exercised 
such  faith,  that  the  deluge  brought  salvation  to  Noah,  while 
it  overwhelmed  others  in  destruction.  So  is  it  in  baptism, 
when  received  in  a  spirit  of  faith.  There  is  in  this  also  the 
putting  off  of  the  old  man  of  corruption — crucifying  it  to- 
gether with  Christ,  and  at  the  same  time  a  rising  through 
the  resurrection  of  Christ  to  the  new  and  heavenly  life,  which 
satisfies  the  demands  of  a  pure  and  enlightened  conscience. 
So  that  the  really  baptized  soul  is  one  in  which  there  has  been 
a  killing  and  a  making  alive,  a  breaking  up  and  destroying 
of  the  root  of  corrupt  nature,  and  planting  in  its  stead  the 
seed  of  a  divine  nature,  to  spring,  and  grow,  and  bring  forth 
fruit  to  perfection.  In  the  microcosm  of  the  individual  be- 
liever, there  is  the  perishing  of  an  old  world  of  sin  and  death, 
and  the  establishment  of  a  new  world  of  righteousness  and  life 
everlasting. 

Such  is  the  proper  idea  of  Christian  baptism,  and  such 
would  be  the  practical  result  were  the  idea  fully  realized  in  the 
experience  of  the  baptized.  But  this  is  so  far  from  being  the 
case,  that  even  the  idea  is  apt  to  suffer  in  people's  minds  from 
the  conscious  imperfections  of  their  experience.  And  it  might 
help  to  check  such  a  tendency — it  might,  at  least,  be  of  ser- 

1 1  Pet  iii.  2L 


278  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SGBIPTUEE. 

vice  in  enabling  them  to  keep  themselves  well  informed  as 
to  what  should  be,  if  they  looked  occasionally  to  what  actually 
was,  in  the  outward  pattern  of  these  spiritual  things,  given 
in  the  times  of  Noah.  Are  you  disinclined,  we  might  say  to 
them,  to  have  the  axe  so  unsparingly  applied  to  the  old  man 
of  corruption  ?  Think,  for  your  warning,  how  God  spared  not 
the  old  world,  but  sent  its  mass  of  impurity  headlong  into 
the  gulf  of 'perdition.  Seems  it  a  task  too  formidable,  and 
likely  to  prove  hopeless  in  the  accomplishment,  to  maintain 
your  ground  against  the  powers  of  evil  in  the  world  ?  Think 
again,  for  your  encouragement,  how  impotent  the  giants  of 
wickedness  were  of  old  to  defeat  the  counsels  of  God,  or  pre- 
vail over  those  who  held  fast  their  confidence  in  His  word ; 
with  all  their  numbers  and  their  might,  they  sunk  like  lead 
in  the  waters,  while  the  little  household  of  faith  rode  secure 
in  the  midst  of  them.  Or  does  it  appear  strange,  at  times 
perhaps  incredible,  to  your  mind,  that  you  should  be  made 
the  subject  of  a  work  which  requires  for  its  accomplishment 
the  peculiar  perfections  of  Godhead,  while  others  are  left  en- 
tire strangers  to  it,  and  even  find  the  word  of  God — the 
chosen  instrument  for  effecting  it — the  occasion  of  wrath  and 
condemnation  to  their  souls  ?  Remember  "  the  few,  the  eight 
souls  "  of  Noah's  family,  alone  preserved  amid  the  wreck  and 
desolation  of  a  whole  world — preserved,  too,  by  faith  in  a 
word  of  God,  which  carried  in  its  bosom  the  doom  of  myriads 
of  their  fellow-creatures,  and  so,  finding  that  which  was  to 
others  a  minister  of  condemnation,  a  source  of  peace  and  safety 
to  them.  Rest  assured,  that  as  God  Himself  remains  the  same 
through  all  generations,  so  His  work  for  the  good  of  men  is 
essentially  the  same  also;  and  it  ever  must  be  His  design 
and  purpose,  that  Noah's  faith  and  salvation  should  be  per- 
petually renewing  themselves  in  the  hidden  life  and  experi- 
ence oi  those  who  are  preparing  for  the  habitations  of  glory. 


SECTION  THIRD. 

THE   NEW   WORLD   AND   ITS   INHERITORS THE   MEN   OF   FAITH. 

IN  one  respect  the  world  seemed  to  have  suffered  material 
loss  by  the  visitation  of  the  deluge.  Along  with  the  agents 
and  instruments  of  evil,  there  had  also  been  swept  away  by 
it  the  emblems  of  grace  and  hope — paradise  with  its  tree  of 
life  and  its  cherubim  of  glory.  We  can  conceive  Noah  and  his 
household,  when  they  first  left  the  ark,  looking  around  with 
melancholy  feelings  on  the  position  they  now  occupied,  not 
only  as  being  the  sole  survivors  of  a  numerous  offspring,  but 
also  as  being  themselves  bereft  of  the  sacred  memorials  which 
bore  evidence  of  a  happy  past,  and  exhibited  the  pledge  of  a 
yet  happier  future.  An  important  link  of  communion  with 
heaven,  it  might  well  have  seemed,  was  broken  by  the  change 
thus  brought  through  the  deluge  on  the  world.  But  the  loss 
was  soon  fully  compensated,  and  we  may  even  say  more  than 
compensated,  by  the  advantages  conferred  on  Noah  and  his 
seed  from  the  higher  relation  to  which  they  were  now  raised 
in  respect  to  God  and  the  world.  There  are  three  points  that 
here,  in  particular,  call  for  attention. 

1.  The  first  is,  the  new  condition  of  the  earth  itself,  which 
immediately  appears  in  the  freedom  allowed  and  practiced  in 
regard  to  the  external  worship  of  God.  This  was  no  longer 
confined  to  any  single  region,  as  seems  to  have  been  the  case 
in  the  age  subsequent  to  the  fall.  The  cherubim  were  located 
in  a  particular  spot,  on  the  east  of  the  garden  of  Eden ;  and 
as  the  symbols  of  God's  presence  were  there,  it  was  only  nat- 
ural that  the  celebration  of  divine  worship  should  there  also 
have  found  its  common  centre.  Hence  the  two  sons  of  Adam 
are  said  to  have  " brought  their  offerings  unto  the  Lord" — 
which  can  scarcely  be  understood  otherwise  than  as  point- 
ing to  that  particular  locality  whicn  was  hallowed  by  visible 
symbols  of  the  Lord's  presence,  and  in  the  neighborhood  of 
which  life  and  blessing  still  lingered  In  like  manner,  it  is 


280  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBEPTUBE. 

said  of  Cain,  after  he  had  assumed  the  attitude  of  rebellion, 
that  "  he  went  out  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord,"  obviously 
implying  that  there  was  a  certain  region  with  which  the 
divine  presence  was  considered  to  be  more  particularly  con- 
nected, and  which  can  be  thought  of  nowhere  else  than  in 
that  sanctuary  on  the  east  of  Eaen.  But  with  the  flood  the 
reason  for  any  such  restriction  vanished.  Noah,  therefore, 
reared  his  altar,  and  presented  his  sacrifice  to  the  Lord  where 
the  ark  rested.  There  immediately  he  got  the  blessing,  and 
entered  into  covenant  with  God — proving  that,  in  a  sense, 
old  things  had  gassed  away,  and  all  had  become  new.  The 
earth  had  risen  in  the  divine  reckoning  to  a  higher  condition ; 
it  had  passed  through  the  baptism  of  water,  and  was  now,  in 
a  manner,  cleansed  from  defilement;  so  that  every  place  had 
become  sacred,  and  might  be  regarded  as  suitable  for  the 
most  solemn  acts  of  worship.1 

This  more  sacred  and  elevated  position  of  the  earth  after 
the  deluge  appears,  further,  in  the  express  repeal  of  the  curse 
originally  laid  upon  the  ground  for  the  sin  of  Adam ;  "  I  will 
not  again  curse  the  ground  any  more  for  man's  sake,"  *  was 
the  word  of  God  to  Noah,  when  accepting  the  first  offering 
presented  to  Him  on  the  purified  earth.  It  is,  no  doubt,  to 
be  understood  relatively;  not  as  indicating  a  total  repeal  of 
the  evil,  but  only  a  mitigation  of  it ;  yet  such  a  mitigation 
as  would  render  the  earth  a  much  less  afflicted  and  more 
fertile  region  than  it  had  been  before.  But  this  again  indi- 
cated that,  in  the  estimation  of  Heaven,  the  earth  had  now 
assumed  a  new  position ;  that  by  the  action  of  God  s  judg- 
ment upon  it,  it  had  become  hallowed  in  His  sight,  and  was 
in  a  condition  to  receive  tokens  of  the  divine  favor,  which 
had  formerly  been  withheld  from  it. 

1  If  we  are  right  as  to  the  centralization  of  the  primitive  worship  of  mankind 
(and  it  seems  to  be  only  the  natural  inference  from  the  notices  referred  to), 
then  the  antediluvian  population  can  not  well  be  supposed  to  have  been  of 
vast  extent,  or  to  have  wandered  to  a  very  great  distance  from  the  original 
centre.  The  employment  also  of  a  special  agency  after  the  flood  to  disperse 
the  descendants  of  Noah,  and  scatter  them  over  the  earth,  seems  to  indicate 
that  an  indisposition  to  go  to  a  distance,  a  tendency  to  crowd  too  much  about 
a  single  locality,  was  one  of  the  sources  of  evil  in  the  first  stage  of  the  world's 
history,  the  recurrence  of  which  well  deserved  to  be  prevented,  even  by  mirac- 
ulous interference;  and  it  is  perfectly  conceivable,  indeed  most  likely,  that 
the  tower  of  Babel,  in  connection  with  which  this  interference  took  place,  was 
not  intended  to  be  a  palladium  of  idolatry,  or  a  mere  freak  of  ambitious  folly, 
but  rather  a  sort  of  substitution  for  the  loss  of  the  Edenio  symbols,  and,  as  such, 
a  centre  of  union  for  the  human  family.  It  follows,  of  course,  from  the  same 
considerations,  that  the  deluge  might  not  absolutely  require,  so  far  as  the  race 
of  man  was  concerned,  to  extend  over  more  than  a  comparatively  limited  por- 
tion of  the  earth.  But  its  actual  compass  is  not  thereby  determined. 

»  Gen.  viii.  21. 


THE  NEW  WOBLD  AOT>  ITS  INHEBITOKS,          281 

2.  The  second  point  to  be  noticed  here,  is  the  heirship 
given  of  this  new  world  to  Noah  and  his  seed — given  to  them 
expressly  as  the  children  of  faith. 

Adam,  at  his  creation,  was  constituted  the  lord  of  this 
world,  and  had  kingly  power  and  authority  given  him  to 
subdue  it  and  rule  over  it.  But  on  the  occasion  of  his  fall; 
this  grant,  though  not  formally  recalled,  suffered  a  capital 
abridgment;  since  he  was  sent  forth  from  Eden  as  a  dis- 
crowned monarch,  to  do  the  part  simply  of  a  laborer  on  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  and  with  the  cliscouraging  assurance 
that  it  should  reluctantly  yield  to  him  of  its  fruitfulness. 
Nor,  when  he  afterwards  so  distinctly  identified  himself  with 
God's  promise  and  purpose  of  grace,  by  appearing  as  the  head 
only  of  that  portion  of  his  seed  who  had  faith  in  God,  did 
there  seem  any  alleviation  of  the  evil :  the  curse  that  rested 
on  the  ground,  rested  on  it  still,  even  for  the  seed  of  bless- 
ing ; l  and  not  they,  but  the  ungodly  Cainites,  acquired  in  it 
the  ascendency  of  physical  force  and  political  dominion. 

A  change,  however,  appears  in  the  relative  position  of 
things,  when  the  flood  had  swept  with  its  purifying  waters 
over  the  earth.  Man  now  rises,  in  the  person  of  Noah,  to  a 
higher  place  in  the  world;  yet  not  simply  as  man,  but  as  a 
child  of  God,  standing  in  faith.  His  faith  had  saved  him  amid 
the  general  wreck  of  the  old  world,  to  become  in  the  new  a 
second  head  of  mankind,  and  an  inheritor  of  earth's  domain, 
as  now  purged  and  rescued  from  the  pollution  of  evil.  "  He  is 
made  heir,'  as  it  is  written  in  Hebrews,  "of  the  righteousness 
which  is  by  faith," — heir,  that  is,  of  all  that  properly  belongs 
to  such  righteousness,  not  merely  of  the  righteousness  itself', 
but  also  of  the  world,  which  in  the  divine  purpose  it  was 
destined  to  possess  and  occupy.  Hence,  as  if  there  had  been 
a  new  creation,  and  a  new  head  brought  in  to  exercise  over 
it  the  right  of  sovereignty,  the  original  blessing  and  grant 
to  Adam  are  substantially  renewed  to  Noah  and  his  family: 
"  And  God  blessed  Noah  and  his  sons,  and  said  unto  them, 
Be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth.  And  the 
fear  of  you,  and  the  aread  of  you,  shall  be  upon  every  beast 
of  the  earth,  and  upon  every  fowl  of  the  air,  upon  all  that 
moveth  upon  the  earth,  and  upon  all  the  fishes  of  the  sea: 
into  your  hand  are  they  delivered."  Here,  then,  the  right- 
eousness of  faith  received  direct  from  the  grace  of  God  the 
dowry  that  had  been  originally  bestowed  upon  the  righteous- 
ness of  nature — not  a  blessing  merely,  but  a  blessing  coupled 
with  the  heirship  and  dominion  of  the  world. 

»  Gen.  T.  29. 


282  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

There  was  nothing  strange  or  arbitrary  in  such  a  proceed- 
ing; it  was  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  great  principles  of 
the  divine  administration.  Adam  was  too  closely  connected 
with  the  sin  that  destroyed  the  world,  to  be  reinvested,  even 
when  he  had  through  faith  become  a  partaker  of  grace,  with 
the  restored  heirship  of  the  world.  Nor  had  the  world  itself 
passed  through  such  an  ordeal  of  purification,  as  to  fit  it,  in 
the  personal  lifetime  of  Adam,  or  of  his  more  immediate  off- 
spring, for  being  at  all  represented  in  the  light  of  an  inherit- 
ance of  blessing.  The  renewed  title  to  the  heirship  of  its  ful- 
ness was  properly  reserved  to  the  time  when,  by  the  great  act 
of  divine  judgment  at  the  deluge,  it  had  passed  into  a  new 
condition ;  and  when  one  was  found  of  the  woman's  seed,  who 
had  attained  in  a  peculiar  degree  to  the  righteousness  of  faith, 
and  along  with  the  world  had  undergone  a  process  of  salva- 
tion. It  was  precisely  such  a  person  that  should  have  been 
chosen  as  the  first  type  of  the  righteousness  of  faith,  in  re- 
spect to  its  world-wide  heritage  of  blessing.  And  having 
been  raised  to  this  higher  position,  an  additional  sacredness 
was  thrown  around  him  and  his  seed :  the  fear  of  them  was 
to  be  put  into  the  inferior  creatures;  their  life  was  to  be 
avenged  of  every  one  that  should  wrongfully  take  it ;  even 
the  life-blood  of  irrational  animals  was  to  be  held  sacred,  be- 
cause of  its  having  something  in  common  with  man's,  while 
their  flesh  was  now  freely  surrendered  to  their  use; — the 
whole  evidently  fitted,  and,  we  can  not  doubt,  also  intended 
to  convey  the  idea,  that  man  had  by  the  special  gift  of  God's 
grace  been  again  constituted  heir  and  lord  of  the  world,  that, 
in  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  "  the  earth  had  been  given  to 
the  children  of  men,"  and  given  in  a  larger  and  fuller  sense 
than  had  been  done  since  the  period  of  the  fall.1 

3.  The  remaining  point  to  be  noticed  in  respect  to  this  new 
order  of  things,  is  the  pledge  of  continuance,  notwithstanding 
all  appearances  or  threatenings  to  the  contrary,  given  in  the 
covenant  made  with  Noah,  and  confirmed  by  a  fixed  sign  in 


1  It  presents  no  contrariety  to  this,  when  rightly  considered,  that  the  Lord 
should  also  have  connected  His  purpose  of  preserving  the  earth  in  future 
with  the  corruption  of  man:  "  And  the  Lord  smelled  a  sweet  savor  (viz.,  from 
Noah's  sacrifice);  and  the  Lord  said  in  His  heart,  I  will  not  again  curse  the 
ground  any  more  for  man's  sake;  for  the  imagination  of  man's  heart  is  evil 
from  his  youth  "  (Gen.  viii.  21).  The  meaning  is,  that  God  delighted  so 
much  more  in  the  offerings  of  righteousness  than  in  the  inflictions  of  judg- 
ment, that  He  would  now  direct  His  providence  so  as  more  effectually  to 
secure  the  former — would  not  allow  the  imaginations  of  man's  evil  heart  to 
get  such  scope  as  they  had  done  before;  but,  perceiving  and  remembering 
their  native  existence  in  the  heart,  would  bring  such  remedial  influences  into 
operation  that  the  extremity  of  the  past  should  not  again  return. 


THE  NEW  WOELD  AND  ITS  INHEBITOES.          283 

the  heavens.  "And  God  spake  unto  Noah,  and  to  his  sons 
with  him,  saying,  And  I,  behold,  I  establish  my  covenant  with 
you,  and  with  your  seed  after  you;  and  with  every  living 
creature  that  is  with  you,  of  the  fowl,  of  the  cattle,  and  of 
every  beast  of  the  earth  with  you ;  from  all  that  go  out  of 
the  ark,  to  every  beast  of  the  earth.  And  I  will  establish  my 
covenant  with  you :  neither  shall  all  flesh  be  cut  off  any  more 
by  the  waters  of  a  flood ;  neither  shall  there  any  more  be  a 
flood  to  destroy  the  earth.  And  God  said,  This  is  the  token 
of  the  covenant  which  I  make  between  me  and  you,  and  every 
living  creature  that  is  with  you,  for  perpetual  generations :  I 
do  set  my  bow  in  the  cloud,  and  it  shall  be  for  a  token  of  a 
covenant "  (more  exactly :  my  bow  I  have  set  in  the  cloud,  and 
it  shall  be  for  a  covenant-sign)  "  between  me  and  the  earth. 
And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  when  I  bring  a  cloud  over  the  earth, 
that  the  bow  shall  be  seen  in  the  cloud :  and  I  will  remember 
my  covenant,  which  is  between  me  and  you  and  every  living 
creature  of  all  flesh ;  and  the  waters  shall  no  more  become  a 
flood  to  destroy  all  flesh." l 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  natural  impression  pro- 
duced by  this  passage  in  respect  to  the  sign  of  the  covenant 
is,  that  it  now  lor  the  first  time  appeared  in  the  lower  heavens. 
The  Lord  might,  no  doubt,  then,  or  at  any  future  time,  have 
taken  an  existing  phenomenon  in  nature,  and  by  a  special 
appointment  made  it  the  instrument  of  conveying  some  new 
and  higher  meaning  to  the  subjects  of  His  revelation.  But 
in  a  matter  like  the  present,  when  the  specific  object  contem- 
plated was  to  allay  men's  fears  of  the  possible  recurrence  of 
the  deluge,  and  give  them  a  kind  of  visible  pledge  in  nature 
for  the  permanence  of  her  existing  order  and  constitution,  one 
is  at  a  loss  to  see  how  a  natural  phenomenon,  common  alike  to 
the  antediluvian  and  the  postdiluvian  world,  could  have  fitly 
served  the  purpose.  In  that  case,  so  far  as  the  external  sign 
was  concerned,  matters  stood  precisely  where  they  were;  and 
it  was  not  properly  the  sign,  but  the  covenant  itself,  which 
formed  the  guarantee  of  safety  for  the  future.  We  incline, 
therefore,  to  the  opinion  that,  in  the  announcement  here  made, 
intimation  is  given  of  a  change  in  the  physical  relations  or 
temperature  of  at  least  that  portion  of  the  earth  where  the 
original  inhabitants  had  their  abode ;  by  reason  of  which  the 
descent  of  moisture  in  showers  of  rain  came  to  take  the  place 
of  distillation  by  dew,  or  other  modes  of  operation  different 
from  the  present.  The  supposition  is  favored  by  the  mention 
only  of  dew  before  in  connection  with  the  moistening  of  the 

>  Ckn.  ix.  8-15. 


284  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

ground;1  and  when  rain  does  come  to  be  mentioned,  it  is  rain 
in  such  flowing  torrents  as  seems  rather  to  betoken  the  out- 
pouring of  a  continuous  stream,  than  the  gentle  dropping 
which  we  are  wont  to  understand  by  the  term,  and  to  asso- 
ciate with  the  rainbow. 

The  fitness  of  the  rainbow  in  other  respects  to  serve  as  a 
sign  of  the  covenant  made  with  Noah,  is  all  that  could  be 
desired.  There  is  an  exact  correspondence  between  the  nat- 
ural phenomenon  it  presents,  and  the  moral  use  to  which  it 
is  applied.  The  promise  in  the  covenant  was  not  that  there 
should  be  no  future  visitations  of  judgment  upon  the  earth, 
but  that  they  should  not  proceed  to  the  extent  of  again  de- 
stroying the  world.  In  the  moral,  as  in  the  natural  sphere, 
there  might  still  be  congregating  vapors  and  descending  tor- 
rents; indeed,  the  terms  of  the  covenant  imply  that  there 
should  be  such,  and  that  by  means  of  them  God  would  not 
fail  to  testify  His  displeasure  against  sin,  and  keep  in  awe 
the  workers  of  iniquity.  But  there  should  be  no  second 
deluge  to  diffuse  universal  ruin;  mercy  should  always  so 
far  rejoice  against  judgment.  Such  in  the  field  of  nature  is 
the  assurance  given  by  the  rainbow,  which  is  formed  by  the 
lustre  of  the  sun's  rays  shining  on  the  dark  cloud  as  it  recedes ; 
so  that  it  may  be  termed,  as  in  the  somewhat  poetical  descrip- 
tion of  Lange,  "the  sun's  triumph  over  the  floods;  the  glitter 
of  his  beams  imprinted  on  the  rain-cloud  as  a  mark  of  subjec- 
tion." How  appropriate  an  emblem  of  that  grace  which 
should  always  show  itself  ready  to  return  after  wrath !  Grace 
still  sparing  and  preserving,  even  when  storms  of  judgment 
have  been  bursting  forth  upon  the  guilty !  And  as  the  rain- 
bow throws  its  radiant  arch  over  the  expanse  between  heaven 
and  earth,  uniting  the  two  together  again  as  with  a  wreath 
of  beauty,  after  they  have  been  engaged  in  an  elemental  war, 
what  a  fitting  image  does  it  present  to  the  thoughtful  eye  of 
the  essential  harmony  that  still  subsists  between  the  higher 
and  the  lower  spheres!  Such  undoubtedly  is  its  symbolic 
import,  as  the  sign  peculiarly  connected  with  the  covenant 
of  Noah ;  it  holds  out,  by  means  of  its  very  form  and  nature, 
an  assurance  of  God's  mercy,  as  engaged  to  keep  perpetually 
in  check  the  floods  of  deserved  wrath,  and  continue  to  the 
world  the  manifestation  of  His  grace  and  goodness.  Such 
also  is  the  import  attached  to  it,  when  forming  a  part  of  pro- 
phetic imagery  in  the  visions  of  Ezekiel  and  St.  John ;  *  it  is 
the  symbol  of  grace,  as  ever  ready  to  return  after  judgment, 

1  Gen.  ii.  6. 

•  Ezek.  L  28;  Rev.  iv.  3. 


THE  NEW  WORLD  AND  ITS  INHERITOBa  285 

and  to  stay  the  evil  from  proceeding  so  far  as  to  accomplish  a 
complete  destruction.1 

Yet  gracious  as  this  covenant  with  Noah  was,  and  appro- 
priate and  beautiful  the  sign  that  ratified  it,  all  still  bore  on 
it  the  stamp  of  imperfection;  there  was  an  indication  and  a 
prelude  of  the  better  things  needed  to  make  man  truly  and 
permanently  blessed,  not  these  things  themselves.  For  what 
was  this  new  world,  which  had  its  perpetuity  secured,  and 
over  which  Noah  was  set  to  reign,  as  heir  of  the  righteous- 
ness that  is  by  faith  ?  To  Noah  himself,  and  each-  one  in 
succession  of  his  seed,  it  was  still  a  region  of  corruption  and 
death.  It  had  been  sanctified,  indeed,  by  the  judgment  of 
God,  and  as  thus  sanctified  it  was  not  to  perish  again  as  it 
had  done  before.  But  this  sanctification  was  only  by  water. 
Another  agency,  more  thoroughly  pervasive  in  its  nature, 
and  in  its  effects  more  nobly  sublimating,  the  agency  of  fire, 
is  required  to  purge  out  the  dross  of  its  earthliness,  and  ren- 
der it  a  home  and  an  inheritance  fit  for  those  who  are  made 
like  to  the  Son  of  God.s  And  Noah  himself,  though  acknowl- 
edged heir  of  the  righteousness  by  faith,  and  receiving  on 
his  position  the  seal  of  heaven,  in  the  salvation  granted  to 
him  and  his  household,  yet  how  far  from  being  perfect  in 

1  Far  too  general  is  the  explanation  often  given  of  the  symbolic  import  of 
the  rainbow  by  writers  on  such  topics — as  when  it  is  described  to  be  "in  gen- 
eral a  symbol  of  God's  willingness  to  receive  men  into  favor  again  "  ( Wemyss's 
Clavte  Syrribolica),  or  that  "it  indicates  the  faithfulness  of  the  Almighty  in 
fulfilling  the  promises  that  He  has  made  to  His  people  "  (Mill's  Sacred  Sym- 
bology).  Sound  Christian  feeling,  with  something  of  a  poetic  eye  for  the  im- 
agery of  nature,  finds  its  way  better  to  the  meaning — as  in  the  following  sim- 
ple lines  of  John  Newton : — 

'  When  the  sun  with  cheerful  beams 

Smiles  upon  a  low'ring  sky, 
Soon  its  aspect  softened  seems, 

And  a  rainbow  meets  the  eye, 
While  the  sky  remains  serene, 

This  bright  arch  is  never  seen. 

"Thns  the  Lord's  supporting  power 

Brightest  to  His  saints  appears, 
When  affliction's  threat'ning  hour 

Fills  their  sky  with  clouds  and  fears; 
He  can  wonders  then  perform, 

Paint  a  rainbow  on  the  storm. 

"  Favored  John  a  rainbow  saw 

Circling  round  the  throne  above; 
Hence  the  saints  a  pledge  may  draw 

Of  unchanging  covenant-love: 
Clouds  awhile  may  intervene, 

But  the  bow  shall  still  be  seen." 
«  8  Pet  iii.  7-13. 


286  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBEPTUKE. 

that  righteousness,  or  by  this  salvation  placed  beyond  the 
reach  of  evil !  Ere  long  he  miserably  fell  under  the  power 
of  temptation  ;  and  unmistakable  evidence  appeared  that 
the  serpent's  seed  had  found  a  place  among  the  members 
of  his  household.  High,  therefore,  as  Noah  stood  compared 
with  those  who  had  gone  before  him,  he  was,  after  all,  but 
the  representative  of  an  imperfect  righteousness,  and  the  heir 
of  a  corruptible  and  transitory  inheritance.  He  was  the  type, 
but  no  more  than  the  type,  of  Him  who  was  to  come — in  whom 
the  righteousness  of  God  should  be  perfected,  salvation  should 
rise  to  its  higher  sphere,  and  all,  both  in  the  heirs  of  glory,  and 
the  inheritance  they  were  to  occupy,  should  by  the  baptism 
of  fire  be  rendered  incorruptible,  and  unde  filed,  and  unfading. 


SECTION  FOUETH. 

THE   CHANGE   IN   THE   DIVINE   CALL   FROM    THE    GENERAL   TO   THE   PAR- 
TICULAR  SHEM,    ABRAHAM. 

THE  obvious  imperfections  just  noticed,  both  in  the  right- 
eousness of  the  new  head  of  the  human  family,  and  in  the 
constitution  of  the  world  over  which  he  was  placed,  clearly 
enough  indicated  that  the  divine  plan  had  only  advanced  a 
stage  in  its  progress,  but  had  by  no  means  reached  its  per- 
fection. As  the  world,  however,  in  its  altered  condition,  had 
become  naturally  superior  to  its  former  state,  so — in  necessary 
and  causal  connection  with  this — it  was  in  a  spiritual  respect 
to  stand  superior  to  it :  secured  against  the  return  of  a  gen- 
eral perdition,  it  was  also  secured  against  the  return  of  uni- 
versal apostasy  and  corruption.  The  cause  of  righteousness 
was  not  to  be  trodden  down  as  it  had  been  before — nay,  was 
to  hold  on  its  way,  and  ultimately  rise  to  the  ascendant  in 
the  affairs  of  men. 

Not  only  was  this  presupposed  in  the  covenant  of  perpe- 
tuity established  for  the  world,  as  the  internal  ground  on 
which  it  rested,  but  it  was  also  distinctly  announced  by  the 
father  of  the  new  world,  in  the  prophetic  intimation  he  gave 
of  the  future  destinies  of  his  children.  It  was  a  melancholy 
occasion  which  drew  this  prophecy  forth,  as  it  was  alike  con- 
nected with  the  shameful  backsliding  of  Noah  himself,  and 
the  wanton  indecency  of  his  youngest  son.  When  Noah  re- 
covered from  his  sin,  and  understood  how  this  son  had  ex- 
posed, while  the  other  two  had  covered,  his  nakedness,  he 
said,  "  Cursed  be  Canaan ;  a  servant  of  servants  (i.  e.,  a  servant 
of  the  lowest  grade)  shall  he  be  to  his  brethren.  And  he 
said,  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Shem,  and  Canaan  shall  be 
his  servant.  God  shall  enlarge  Japheth,  and  he  shall  dwell 
in  the  tents  of  Shem ;  and  Canaan  shall  be  his  servant." 1 

There  are  various  points  of  interest  connected  with  this 
prophecy,  and  the  occurrence  that  gave  rise  to  it,  which  it 

i  Gen.  ix.  25-27. 


288  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

does  not  fall  within  our  province  to  notice.  But  the  leading 
scope  of  it,  as  bearing  on  the  prospective  destinies  of  man- 
kind, is  manifestly  of  a  hopeful  description ;  and  in  that  re- 
spect it  differs  materially  from  the  first  historical  incident 
that  revealed  the  conflict  of  nature  and  grace  in  the  family 
of  Adam.  The  triumph  of  Cain  over  righteous  Abel,  and  his 
stout-hearted  resistance  to  the  voice  of  God,  gave  ominous 
indication  of  the  bad  pre-eminence  which  sin  was  to  acquire, 
and  the  fearful  results  which  it  was  to  achieve  in  the  old 
world.  But  the  milder  form  of  this  outbreak  of  evil  in  the 
family  of  Noah — the  immediate  discouragement  it  meets  with 
from  the  older  members  of  the  family — the  strong  denuncia- 
tion it  draws  down  from  the  venerable  parent — above  all,  the 
clear  and  emphatic  prediction  it  elicits  of  the  ascendency  of 
the  good  over  the  evil  in  these  seminal  divisions  of  the*  hu- 
man family — one  and  all  perfectly  accorded  with  the  more 
advanced  state  which  the  world  had  reached;  they  bespoke 
the  cheering  fact,  that  righteousness  should  now  hola  its 
ground  in  the  world,  and  that  the  dominant  powers  and 
races  should  be  in  league  with  it,  while  servility  and  degra- 
dation should  rest  upon  its  adversaries. 

This,  any  one  may  see  at  a  glance,  is  the  general  tendency 
and  design  of  what  was  uttered  on  the  occasion ;  but  there  is 
a  marked  peculiarity  in  the  form  given  to  it,  such  as  plainly 
intimates  the  commencement  of  a  change  in  the  divine  econ- 
omy. The  prophetic  announcement  is  pervaded  by  a  striking 
particularism.  We  see  in  it  no  longer  merely  a  statement  of 
broad  principles,  or  an  indication  of  general  results ;  but  there 
is  given — though  still,  no  doubt,  in  wide  and  comprehensive 
terms — the  characteristic  outlines  of  the  future  state  and  rela- 
tive positions  of  Noah's  descendants.  Such  is  the  decided 
tendency  here  to  the  particular,  that  in  the  dark  side  of  the 
picture  it  is  not  Ham,  the  offending  son  and  the  general  head 
of  the  worse  portion  of  the  postdiluvian  family,  who  is  selected 
as  the  special  object  of  judgment,  nor  the  sons  of  Ham  gen- 
erally, but  specifically  Canaan,  who,  it  seems  all  but  certain, 
was  the  youngest  son.1  Why  this  son,  rather  than  the  offend- 
ing father,  should  have  been  singled  out  for  denunciation,  has 
been  ascribed  to  various  reasons ;  and  resort  has  not  unfre- 
quently  been  had  to  conjecture,  by  supposing  that  this  son 
may  probably  have  been  present  with  the  father,  or  some  way 
participated  with  him  in  the  offence.  Even,  however,  if  we 
had  been  certified  of  this  participation,  it  could  at  most  have 
accounted  for  the  introduction  of  the  name  of  Canaan  along 


CHA-N'UE  itt   THE  CALL,   SHRM.  289 

with  his  father's  but  not  for  the  one  being  supplanted  by  the 
other.  Nor  can  we  allow  much  more  weight  to  another  sup- 
position, that  the  omission  of  the  name  of  Ham  may  have 
been  intended  for  the  very  purpose  of  proving  the  absence  of 
all  vindictive  feeling,  and  showing  that  these  were  the  words, 
not  of  a  justly  indignant  parent  giving  vent  to  the  emotions 
of  the  passing  moment,  but  of  a  divinely  inspired  prophet 
calmly  anticipating  the  events  of  a  remote  futurity.  Un- 
doubtedly such  is  their  character ;  but  no  extenuating  consid- 
eration of  this  kind  is  needed  to  prove  it,  if  we  only  keep  in 
view  the  judicial  nature  of  this  p>art  of  the  prophecy.  The 
curse  pronounced  is  not  an  ebullition  of  wrathful  feeling,  not 
a  wish  for  the  infliction  of  evil,  but  the  announcement  of  a 
doom,  or  punishment  for  a  particular  offence;  and  one  that 
was  to  take,  as  so  often  happens  in  divine  chastisements,  the 
specific  form  of  the  offence  committed.  Noah's  affliction 
from  the  conduct  of  Ham  was  in  the  most  peculiar  manner 
to  find  its  parallel  in  the  case  of  Ham  himself:  he,  the 
youngest  son  of  Noah,1  had  proved  a  vexation  and  disgrace 
to  his  father,  and  in  meet  retaliation  his  own  youngest  son 
was  to  have  his  name  in  history  coupled  with  the  most  humil- 
iating and  abject  degradation. 

It  was,  therefore,  in  the  first  instance  at  least,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  marking  more  distinctly  the  connection  between  the 
sin  and  its  punishment,  that  Canaan  only  was  mentioned  in 
the  curse.  Viewed  as  spoken  to  Ham,  the  word  virtually 
said,  I  am  pained  to  the  heart  on  account  of  you,  my  young- 
est son,  arid  you  in  turn  shall  have  good  cause  to  be  pained 
on  account  of  your  youngest  son — your  own  measure  shall  be 
meted  back  with  increase  to  yourself.  It  may  be  true — as 
Havernick  states  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Pentateuch — that  the 
curse  properly  belonging  to  Ham,  was  to  concentrate  itself 
in  the  line  of  Canaan;  and,  beyond  doubt,  it  is  more  espe- 
cially in  connection  with  that  line  that  Scripture  itself  traces 
the  execution  of  the  curse.  But  these  are  somewhat  remote 
and  incidental  considerations ;  the  more  natural  and  direct  is 
the  one  already  given — which  Hofmann,  we  believe,  was  the 
first  to  suggest.8  And  as  the  word  took  the  precise  form  it 

1  Gen.  iz.  24.     The  expression  in  the  original  is  ppn  ijn,  and  is  the  same 

that  is  applied  to  David  in  1  Sam.  xvii.  14.  There  can,  therefore,  be  no  rea- 
sonable doubt  that  it  means  youngest,  and  not  tender  or  dear,  as  some  would 
take  it  It  is  not  so  expressly  said  that  Canaan  was  Ham's  youngest  son;  but 
the  inference  that  he  was  such  is  fair  and  natural,  as  he  is  mentioned  last  in 
the  genealogy,  ch.  x.  6,  where  no  sufficient  reason  can  be  thought  of  for  devi- 
ating from  the  natural  order. 

s  Weissagung  und  Krfullung,  i.  p.  89. 

VOL.  1.— 19. 


290  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

did,  for  the  purpose  more  particularly  of  marking  the  connec- 
tion between  the  sin  and  the  punishment,  it  plainly  indicated 
that  the  evil  could  not  be  confined  to  the  line  of  Ham's  de- 
scendants by  Canaan ;  the  same  polluted  fountain  could  not 
fail  to  send  forth  its  bitter  streams  also  in  other  directions. 
The  connection  is  entirely  a  moral  one.  Even  in  the  case  of 
Canaan  there  was  no  arbitrary  and  hapless  appointment  to 
inevitable  degradation  and  slavery.  This  was  clearly  shown 
by  the  long  forbearance  and  delay  in  the  execution  of  the 
threatened  doom,  expressly  on  the  ground  of  the  iniquity  of 
the  people  not  having  become  full,  and  also  by  the  examples 
of  individual  Canaanites,  who  rose  even  to  distinguished  favor 
and  blessing,  such  as  Melchizedek  and  Rahab  in  earlier,  and 
the  Syrophenician  woman  in  later  times.  Noah,  however, 
saw  with  prophetic  insight,  that  in  a  general  point  of  view 
the  principle  should  here  hold,  like  father  like  child;  and  that 
the  irreverent  and  wanton  spirit  which  so  strikingly  betrayed 
itself  in  the  conduct  of  the  progenitor,  should  infallibly  give 
rise  to  an  offspring  whose  dissolute  and  profligate  manners 
would  in  due  time  bring  upon  them  a  doom  of  degradation 
and  servitude.  Such  a  posterity,  with  such  a  doom,  beyond 
all  question  were  the  Canaanites,  to  whom  we  may  add  also 
the  Tyrians  and  Sidonians,  with  their  descendants  the  Car- 
thaginians. The  connection  of  sin  and  punishment  might 
even  be  traced  in  other  branches,  but  it  were  beside  our 
present  purpose  to  go  into  further  investigations  regarding  it. 
Our  course  of  inquiry  rather  leads  us  to  notice  the  turn  the 
prophecy  takes  in  regard  to  the  other  side  of  the  representa- 
tion, and  to  mark  the  signs  it  contains  of  a  tendency  toward 
the  particular,  in  connection  with  the  future  development  of 
the  scheme  of  grace.  This  comes  out  first  and  pre-eminently 
in  the  case  of  Shem :  "  And  he  said,  Blessed  is  (or  be)  Jehovah, 
the  God  of  Shem  " — a  blessing  not  directly  upon  Shem,  but 
upon  Jehovah  as  his  God !  Why  such  a  peculiarity  as  this  ? 
No  doubt,  in  the  first  instance,  to  make  the  contrast  more 
palpable  between  this  case  and  the  preceding ;  the  connection 
with  God,  which  was  utterly  wanting  in  the  one,  presenting 
itself  as  every  thing,  in  a  manner,  in  the  other.  Then  it  pro- 
claims the  identity  as  to  spiritual  state  between  Noah  and 
Shem,  and  designates  this  son  as  in  the  full  sense  the  heir  of 
blessing :  "  Blessed  be  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Shem : " — my  God 
is  also  the  God  of  my  son;  I  adore  Him  for  what  He  has 
been  to  me,  and  now  make  Him  known  as  the  covenant  God 
of  Shem.  Nor  of  Shem  only  as  an  individual,  but  as  the 
head  of  a  certain  portion  of  the  world's  inhabitants.  It  was 
with  this  portion  that  God  was  to  stand  in  the  nearest  relation. 


CHANGE  IN  THE  CALL,  ABBAHAM.  291 

Here  He  was  to  find  His  peculiar  representatives,  and  His 
select  instruments  of  working  among  men — here  emphati- 
cally were  to  be  the  priestly  people.  A  spiritual  distinction, 
therefore — the  highest  spiritual  distinction,  a  state  of  blessed 
nearness  to  God,  and  special  interest  in  His  fulness — is  what 
is  predicated  of  the  line  of  Shem.  And  in  the  same  sense — 
namely,  as  denoting  a  fellowship  in  this  spiritual  distinction 
— should  that  part  of  the  prophecy  on  Japheth  also  be  under- 
stood, which  points  to  a  connection  with  Shem :  "  God  shall 
enlarge  Japheth,  and  he  shall  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Shem." 
It  obviously,  indeed,  designates  his  stock  generally  as  the 
most  spreading  and  energetic  of  the  three — pre-eminent,  so 
far  as  concerns  diffusive  operations  and  active  labor  in  occu- 
pying the  lands  and  carrying  forward  the  business  of  the 
world — and  thus  naturally  tending,  as  the  event  has  proved, 
to  push  their  way,  even  in  a  civil  and  territorial  respect,  into 
the  tents  of  Shem.  This  last  thought  may  therefore  not  un- 
fairly be  included  in  the  compass  of  the  prediction,  but  it  can 
at  most  be  regarded  as  the  subordinate  idea.  The  prospect, 
as  descried  from  the  sacred  heights  of  prophecy,  of  dwelling 
in  the  tents  of  Shem,  must  have  been  eyed,  not  as  an  intrusive 
conquest  on  the  part  of  Japheth,  subjecting  Shem  in  a  meas- 
ure to  the  degrading  lot  of  Canaan,  but  rather  as  a  sacred 
privilege — an  admission  of  this  less  honored  race  under  the 
shelter  of  the  same  divine  protection,  and  into  the  partnership 
of  the  same  ennobling  benefits  with  .himself.  In  a  word,  it 
was  through  the  line  of  Shem  that  the  gifts  of  grace  and  the 
blessings  of  salvation  were  more  immediately  to  flow — the 
Shemites  were  to  have  them  at  first  hand ;  but  the  descend- 
ants of  Japheth  were  also  to  participate  largely  in  the  good. 
And  by  reason  of  their  more  extensive  ramifications  and  more 
active  energies,  they  were  to  be  mainly  instrumental  in  work- 
ing upon  the  condition  of  the  world. 

It  is  evident,  even  from  this  general  intimation  of  the 
divine  purposes,  that  the  more  particular  direction  which 
was  now  to  be  given  to  the  call  of  God,  was  not  to  be  par- 
ticular in  the  sense  of  exclusive,  but  particular  only  for  the 
sake  of  a  more  efficient  working  and  a  more  comprehensive 
result.  •  The  exaltation  of  Shem's  progeny  into  the  nearest 
relationship  to  God,  was  not  that  they  might  keep  the  priv- 
ilege to  themselves,  but  that  first  getting  it,  they  should 
admit  the  sons  of  Japheth,  the  inhabitants  of  the  isles,  to 
share  with  them  in  the  boon,  and  spread  it  as  wide  as  their 
scattered  race  should  extend.  The  principle  announced  was 
an  imioediate  particularism  for  the  sake  of  an  ultimate  univer- 
salism.  And  this  change  in  the  manner  of  working  was  not 


292  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKEPTUBE. 

introduced  arbitrarily,  but  in  consequence  of  the  proved  in- 
adequacy  of  the  other,  and,  as  we  may  say,  more  natural 
course  that  had  hitherto  been  pursued.  Formally  considered, 
the  earlier  revelations  of  Goo.  made  no  difference  between 
one  person  and  another,  or  even  between  one  stem  and  an- 
other. They  spoke  the  same  language,  and  held  out  the 
same  invitations  to  all.  The  weekly  call  to  enter  into  God's 
rest — the  promise  of  victory  to  the  woman's  seed — the  exhi- 
bition of  grace  and  hope  in  the  symbols  at  the  east  of  Eden 
— the  instituted  means  of  access  to  God  in  sacrificial  worship 
— even  the  more  specific  promises  and  pledges  of  the  Noachic 
covenant,  were  offered  and  addressed  to  men  without  distinc- 
tion. Practically,  however,  they  narrowed  themselves;  and 
when  the  effect  is  looked  to,  it  is  found  that  there  was  only 
a  portion,  an  elect  seed,  that  really  had  faith  in  the  divine 
testimony,  and  entered  into  possession  of  the  offered  good. 
Not  only  so,  but  there  was  a  downward  tendency  in  the  pro- 
cess. The  elect  seed  did  not  grow  as  time  advanced,  out 
proportionally  decreased ;  the  cause  and  party  that  flourished 
was  the  one  opposed  to  God's.  And  the  same  result  was  be- 
ginning to  take  place  after  the  flood,  as  is  evident  from  what 
occurred  in  the  family  of  Noah  itself,  and  from  other  notices 
of  the  early  appearance  of  corruption.  The  tendency  in  this 
direction  was  too  strong  to  be  effectually  met  by  such  general 
revelations  and  overtures  of  mercy.  The  plan  was  too  vague 
and  indeterminate.  A  more  specific  line  of  operations  was 
needed — from  the  particular  to  the  general ;  so  that  a  certain 
amount  of  good,  within  a  definite  range,  might  in  the  first 
instance  be  secured ;  and  that  from  this,  as  a  fixed  position, 
other  advantages  might  be  gained,  and  more  extensive  re- 
sults achieved. 

It  is  carefully  to  be  noted,  then,  that  a  comprehensive 
object  was  as  much  contemplated  in  this  new  plan  as  in  the 
other;  it  differed  only  in  the  mode  of  reaching  the  end  in 
view.  The  earth  was  to  be  possessed  and  peopled  by  the 
three  sons  of  Noah ;  and  of  the  three,  Shem  is  the  one  who 
was  selected  as  the  peculiar  channel  of  divine  gifts  and  com- 
munications— but  not  for  his  own  exclusive  benefit;  rather 
to  the  end  that  others  might  share  with  him  in  the  blessing. 
The  real  nature  and  bearing  of  the  plan,  however,  became 
more  clearly  manifest,  when  it  began  to  be  actually  carried 
into  execution.  Its  proper  commencement  dates  from  the 
call  of  Abraham,  who  was  of  the  line  of  Shem,  and  in  whom, 
as  an  individual,  the  purpose  of  God  began  practically  to 
take  effect.  Why  the  divine  choice  should  have  fixed  spe- 
cially upon  him  as  the  first  individual  link  in  this  grand  chain 


CHANGE  IN  THE  CALL,   AJBllAHAM.  293 

of  providences,  is  not  stated ;  and  from  the  references  subse- 
quently made  to  it,  we  are  plainly  instructed  to  regard  it  as 
an  example  of  the  free  grace  and  sovereign  goodness  of  God.1 
That  he  had  nothing  whereof  to  boast  in  respect  to  it,  we 
are  expressly  told;  and  yet  we  may  not  doubt,  that  in  the 
line  of  Shem's  posterity,  to  which  he  belonged,  there  was 
more  knowledge  of  God,  and  less  corruption  in  His  worship, 
than  among  other  branches  of  the  same  stem.  Hence,  per- 
haps, as  being  addressed  to  one  who  was  perfectly  cognizant 
of  what  had  taken  place  in  the  history  of  nis  progenitors,  the 
revelation  made  to  him  takes  a  form  which  bears  evident  re- 
spect to  the  blessing  pronounced  on  Shem,  and  appears  only 
indeed  as  the  giving  of  a  more  specific  direction  to  Shem's 
high  calling,  or  chalking  out  a  definite  way  for  its  accom- 
plishment. Jehovah  was  the  God  of  Shem — that  in  the  word 
of  Noah  was  declared  to  be  his  peculiar  distinction.  In  like 
manner,  Jehovah  from  the  first  made  Himself  known  to  Abra- 
ham as  his  God ;  nay,  even  took  the  name  of  "  God  of  Abra- 
ham "  as  a  distinctive  epithet,  and  made  the  promise,  "  I  will 
be  a  God  to  thee  and  to  thy  seed  after  thee,"  a  leading  article 
in  the  covenant  established  with  him.  And  as  the  peculiar 
blessing  of  Shem  was  to  be  held  with  no  exclusive  design, 
but  that  the  sons  of  Japheth  far  and  wide  might  share  in  it, 
so  Abraham  is  called  not  only  to  be  himself  blessed,  but  also 
that  he  might  be  a  blessing, — a  blessing  to  such  an  extent, 
that  those  should  be  blessed  who  blessed  him,  and  in  him  all 
the  families  of  the  earth  should  be  blessed.*  Yet  with  this 
general  similarity  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  announce- 
ment, what  a  striking  advance  does  the  divine  plan  now  make 
in  breadth  of  meaning  and  explicitness  of  purpose !  How 
wonderfully  does  it  combine  together  the  little  and  the  great, 
the  individual  and  the  universal !  Its  terminus  a  quo  the  son 
of  a  Mesopotamian  shepherd;  and  its  terminus  ad  quern  the 
entire  brotherhood  of  humanity,  and  the  round  circumfer- 
ence of  the  globe !  What  a  divine-like  grasp  and  compre- 
hensiveness !  The  very  projection  of  such  a  scheme  bespoke 
the  infinite  understanding  of  Godhead ;  and  minds  altogether 
the  reverse  of  narrow  and  exclusive,  minds  attempered  to 
noble  aims  and  inspired  by  generous  feeling,  alone  could 
carry  it  into  execution. 

By  this  call  Abraham  was  raised  to  a  very  singular  pre- 
eminence, and  constituted  in  a  manner  the  root  and  centre 
of  the  world's  future  history,  as  concerned  the  attainment 

1  Josh.  xiiv.  2;  Neh.  ix.  7. 
«  Gen.  rii.  1-3,  xvii.  ±-& 


294  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUEE. 

of  real  blessing.  Still,  even  in  that  respect  not  exclusively. 
The  blessing  was  to  come  chiefly  to  Abraham,  and  through 
him ;  but,  as  already  indicated  also  in  the  prophecy  on  Shem, 
others  were  to  stand,  though  in  a  subordinate  rank,  on  the 
same  line — since  those  also  were  to  be  blessed  who  blessed 
him ;  that  is,  who  held  substantially  the  same  faith,  and  oc- 
cupied the  same  friendly  relation  to  God.  The  cases  of  such 
persons  in  the  patriarch's  own  day,  as  his  kinsman  Lot,  who 
was  not  formally  admitted  into  Abraham's  covenant,  and  still 
more  of  Melchizedek,  who  was  not  even  of  Abraham's  line, 
and  yet  individually  stood  in  some  sense  higher  than  Abra- 
ham himself,  clearly  showed,  and  were  no  doubt  partly  raised 
up  for  the  purpose  of  showing,  that  there  was  nothing  arbi- 
trary in  Abraham's  position,  and  that  the  ground  he  occupied 
was  to  a  certain  extent  common  to  believers  generally.  The 
peculiar  honor  conceded  to  him  was,  that  the  great  trunk  of 
blessing  was  to  be  of  him,  while  only  some  isolated  twigs 
or  scattered  branches  were  to  be  found  elsewhere ;  and  even 
these  could  only  be  found  by  persons  coming,  in  a  manner, 
to  make  common  cause  with  him.  In  regard  to  himself,  how- 
ever, the  large  dowry  of  good  conveyed  to  him  in  the  divine 
promise  could  manifestly  not  be  realized  through  himself  per- 
sonally. There  could  at  the  most  be  but  a  beginning  made 
in  his  own  experience  and  history ;  and  the  widening  of  the 
circle  of  blessing  to  other  kindreds  and  regions,  till  it  reached 
the  most  distant  families  of  the  earth,  must  necessarily  be 
effected  by  means  of  those  who  were  to  spring  from  him. 
Hence  the  original  word  of  promise,  which  was,  "  In  thee 
shall  all  families  of  the  earth  be  blessed,"  was  afterwards 
changed  into  this,  "  In  thy  seed  shall  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  be  blessed." l 

Yet  the  original  expression  is  not  without  an  important 
meaning,  and  it  takes  the  two,  the  earlier  as  well  as  the  later 
form,  to  bring  out  the  full  design  of  God  in  the  calling  of 
Abraham.  From  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  first,  as  having 
respect  to  so  extensive  a  field  to  be  operated  on,  and  then 
from  the  explicit  mention  of  the  patriarch's  seed  in  the  prom- 
ise, no  doubt  whatever  could  be  entertained  that  the  good  in 
its  larger  sense  was  to  be  wrought  out,  not  by  himself  indi- 
vidually and  directly,  but  by  him  in  connection  with  the  seed 
to  be  given  to  him.  And  when  the  high  character  as  well  as 
the  comprehensive  reach  of  the  good  was  taken  into  account, 
it  might  well  have  seemed  as  if  even  that  seed  were  somehow 
going  to  have  qualities  associated  with  it  which  he  could  not 

i  Qen.  xxii.  18. 


CHANGE  IN  THE  CALL,   ABEAHAM.  295 

perceive  in  himself — as  if  another  and  higher  connection  with 
the  heavenly  and  divine  should  in  due  time  be  given  to  it, 
than  any  he  was  conscious  of  enjoying  in  his  state  of  no- 
blest elevation.  We,  at  least,  know  from  the  better  light  we 
possess,  that  such  actually  was  the  case ;  that  the  good  prom- 
ised neither  did  nor  could  have  come  into  realization  but  by 
a  personal  commingling  of  the  divine  with  the  human ;  and 
that  it  has  become  capable  of  reaching  to  the  most  exalted 
height,  and  of  diffusing  itself  through  the  widest  bounds, 
simply  by  reason  of  this  union  in  Christ.  He  therefore  is 
the  essential  kernel  of  the  promise;  and  the  seed  of  Abra- 
ham, rather  than  Abraham  himself,  was  to  have  the  honor 
of  blessing  all  the  families  of  the  earth.  This,  however,  by 
no  means  makes  void  the  in  thee  of  the  original  promise ;  for 
by  so  expressly  connecting  the  good  with  Abraham  as  well 
as  with  his  seed,  the  organic  connection  was  marked  between 
the  one  and  the  other,  and  the  things  that  belonged  to  him 
were  made  known  as  the  beginning  of  the  end.  The  bless- 
ing to  be  brought  to  the  world  through  his  line  had  even  in 
his  time  a  present  though  small  realization — precisely  as  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  had  its  commencement  in  that  of  David, 
and  the  one  ultimately  merged  into  the  other.  And  so,  in 
Abraham  as  the  living  root  of  all  that  was  to  follow,  the 
whole  and  every  part  may  be  said  to  take  its  rise ;  and  not 
only  was  Christ  after  the  flesh  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  but 
each  believer  in  Christ  is  a  son  of  Abraham,  and  the  entire 
company  of  the  redeemed  shall  have  their  place  and  their 
portion  with  Abraham  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Such  being  the  case  with  the  call  of  Abraham — in  its 
objects  so  high,  and  its  results  so  grand  and  comprehensive 
— it  is  manifest  that  the  immediate  limitations  connected  with 
it,  in  regard  to  a  fleshly  offspring  and  a  worldly  inheritance, 
must  only  have  been  intended  to  serve  as  temporary  expedi- 
ents and  fit  stepping-stones  for  the  ulterior  purposes  in  view. 
And  such  statements  regarding  the  covenant  with  Abraham, 
as  that  it  merely  secured  to  Abraham  a  posterity,  and  to  that 
posterity  the  possession  of  the  land  of  Canaan  lor  an  inherit- 
ance, on  the  condition  of  their  acknowledging  Jehovah  as 
their  God,  is  to  read  the  terms  of  the  covenant  with  a  micro- 
scope— magnifying  the  little,  and  leaving  the  great  altogether 
unnoticed — in  the  preliminary  means  losing  sight  of  the  pros- 
pective end.  Another  thing  also,  and  one  more  closely  con- 
nected with  our  present  subject,  is  equally  manifest ;  which 
is,  that  since  the  entire  scheme  of  blessing  had  its  root  in 

1  See,  for  example,  Israel  after  the  flesh,  by  the  Bev.  William  EL  John- 
stone,  pp.  7,  8. 


296  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Abraham,  it  must  also  have  had  its  representation  in  him— 
he,  in  his  position  and  character  and  fortunes,  must  have  been 
the  type  of  that  which  was  to  come.  Such  uniformly  is  God's 
plan,  in  respect  to  those  whom  it  constitutes  heads  of  a  class, 
or  founders  of  a  particular  dispensation.  It  was  so,  first  of 
all,  with  Adam,  in  whom  humanity  itself  was  imaged.  It 
was  so  again  in  a  measure  with  the  three  sons  of  Noah, 
whose  respective  states  and  procedure  gave  prophetic  indi- 
cation of  the  more  prominent  characteristics  tnat  should  dis- 
tinguish their  offspring.  Such,  too,  at  a  future  period,  and 
much  more  remarkably,  was  the  case  with  David,  in  whom, 
as  the  beginning  and  root  of  the  everlasting  kingdom,  there 
was  presented  the  foreshadowing  type  of  all  that  should  es- 
sentially belong  to  the  kingdom,  when  represented  by  its 
divine  head,  and  set  up  in  its  proper  dimensions.  Nor  could 
it  now  be  properly  otherwise  with  Abraham.  The  very  terms 
of  the  call,  which  singled  him  out  from  the  mass  of  the  world, 
and  set  him  on  high,  constrain  us  to  regard  him  as  in  the 
strictest  sense  a  representative  man — in  himself  and  the 
things  belonging  to  his  immediate  heirs,  the  type  at  once 
of  the  subjective  and  the  objective  design  of  the  covenant, 
or,  in  other  words,  of  the  kind  of  persons  who  were  to  be  the 
subjects  and  channels  of  blessing,  and  of  the  kind  of  inherit- 
ance with  which  they  were  to  be  blessed.  It  is  for  the  pur- 
pose of  exhibiting  this  clearly  and  distinctly,  and  thereby 
rendering  the  things  written  of  Abraham  and  his  immediate 
offspring  a  revelation,  in  the  strictest  sense,  of  God's  mind 
and  will  regarding  the  more  distant  future,  that  this  portion 
of  patriarchal  history  was  constructed.  Abraham  himself,  in 
the  first  instance,  was  the  covenant  head  and  the  type  of  what 
was  to  come ;  but  as  the  family  of  the  Israelites  were  to  be  the 
collective  bearers  and  representatives  of  the  covenant,  so,  not 
Abraham  alone,  but  the  whole  of  their  immediate  progenitors, 
who  were  alike  heads  of  the  covenant  people — along  with 
Abraham,  Isaac  also,  and  Jacob,  and  the  twelve  patriarchs — 
possess  a  typical  character.  It  shall  be  our  object,  therefore, 
in  the  two  remaining  sections — which  must  necessarily  ex- 
tend to  a  considerable  length — to  present  the  more  promi- 
nent features  of  the  instruction  intended  to  be  conveyed  in 
both  of  the  respects  now  mentioned — first  in  regard  to  the 
subjects  and  channels  of  blessing,  and  then  in  regard  to  the 
inheritance  destined  for  their  possession. 


SECTION   FIFTH. 

THE    SUBJECTS    AND    CHANNELS    OF    BLESSING ABRAHAM    AND    ISAAC, 

JACOB    AND    THE    TWELVE    PATRIARCHS. 

THE  patriarchs  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  may  be  classed 
together  on  account  of  their  being  alike  covenant  heads  to 
the  children  of  Israel ;  yet  we  are  not  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  Abraham  was  more  especially  the  person  with  whom  the 
covenant  took  its  commencement,  and  in  whom  it  had  its 
more  distinctive  representation.  Accordingly,  it  is  in  con- 
nection with  him  that  we  are  furnished  with  the  most  specific 
and  varied  information  respecting  the  nature  of  the  covenan^ 
and  the  manner  in  which  it  was  to  reach  its  higher  ends. 
We  shall  therefore  look  in  the  first  instance,  to  what  is  writ- 
ten of  him;  conjoining  with  this,  however,  the  notices  we 
have  of  Isaac,  since  what  is  chiefly  interesting  and  impor- 
tant about  Isaac  concerns  him  as  the  seed,  for  which  Abra- 
ham was  immediately  called  to  look  and  wait ;  and  as  regards 
the  greater  lines  of  instruction,  the  lives  of  the  two  are  insep- 
arably knit  together.  The  same  also,  to  a  considerable  extent, 
may  be  said  of  Jacob  and  the  twelve  patriarchs:  the  history 
given  of  them,  viewed  as  a  special  instruction  for  the  cove- 
nant people,  forms  but  one  piece,  and  in  its  more  prospective 
bearings  also  will  be  most  appropriately  taken  as  a  connected 
series. 

I.  Abraham,  then,  is  called  to  be  in  a  peculiar  sense  the 
possessor  and  dispenser  of  blessing;  to  be  himself  blessed, 
and  through  the  seed  that  is  to  spring  from  him,  to  be  a  bless- 
ing to  the  whole  race  of  mankind.  A  divine-like  calling  and 
destiny!  for  it  is  God  alone  who  is  properly  the  source  and 
giver  of  blessing.  Abraham,  therefore,  by  his  very  appoint- 
ment, is  raised  into  a  supernatural  relationship  to  God ;  he  is 
to  be  in  direct  communication  with  Heaven,  and  to  receive 


298  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBEPTUBE. 

all  from  above ;  God  is  to  work,  in  a  special  manner,  for  him 
and  by  him;  and  the  people  that  are  to  spring  out  of  him,  for 
a  blessing  to  other  peoples,  are  to  arise,  not  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  nature,  but  above  and  beyond  it,  as  the  benefits  also 
they  are  to  be  the  instruments  of  diffusing  touch  on  men's 
relation  to  the  spiritual  and  divine.  As  a  necessary  counter- 
part to  this,  and  the  indispensable  condition  of  its  accom- 
plishment, there  must  be  in  Abraham  a  principle  of  faith,  such 
as  might  qualify  him  for  transacting  with  God,  in  regard  to 
the  higher  interests  of  the  covenant.  These  were  not  seen 
or  present,  and  were  also  strange,  to  the  apprehension  of  sense 
unlikely  or  even  impossible;  yet  were  not  the  less  to  be 
regarded  as  sure  in  the  destination  of  Heaven,  and  to  be 
looked  and  waited  for,  also,  if  need  be,  striven  and  suffered 
for  by  men.  This  principle  of  faith  must  evidently  be  the 
fundamental  and  formative  power  in  Abraham's  bosom — the 
very  root  of  his  new  being,  the  life  of  his  life — at  once  mak- 
ing him  properly  receptive  of  the  divine  goodness,  and  read- 
ily obedient  to  the  divine  will — in  the  one  respect  giving 
scope  for  the  display  of  God's  wonders  in  his  behalf,  and  in 
the  other  prompting  him  to  act  in  accordance  with  God's 
righteous  ends  and  purposes.  So  it  actually  was.  Abraham 
was  pre-eminently  a  man  of  faith;  and  on  that  account  was 
raised  to  the  honorable  distinction  of  the  Father  of  the  Faith- 
ful. And  faith  in  him  proved  not  only  a  capacity  to  receive, 
but  a  hand  also  to  work ;  and  is  scarcely  less  remarkable  for 
what  it  brought  to  his  experience  from  the  grace  and  power 
of  God,  than  for  the  sustaining,  elevating,  and  sanctifying 
influence  which  it  shed  over  his  life  and  conduct.  There  are 
particularly  three  stages,  each  rising  in  succession  above  the 
other,  in  which  this  will  be  found  to  have  been  exemplified. 
1.  The  first  is  that  of  the  divine  call  itself,  which  came  to 
Abraham  while  still  living  among  his  kindred  in  the  land  of 
Mesopotamia.1  Even  in  this  original  form  of  the  divine  pur- 
pose concerning  him,  the  supernatural  element  is  conspicuous. 
To  say  nothing  of  its  more  general  provisions,  that  he,  a  Meso- 
potamian  shepherd,  should  be  made  surpassingly  great,  and 
should  even  be  a  source  of  blessing  to  all  the  families  of  the 
earth — to  say  nothing  of  these,  which  might  appear  incredible 
only  from  their  indefinite  vastness  and  comprehension,  the  two 
specific  promises  in  the  call,  that  a  great  nation  should  be  made 
of  him,  and  that  another  land — presently  afterwards  deter- 
mined to  be  the  land  of  Canaan — should  be  given  him  for  an 
inheritance,  both  lay  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  natural  and 

i  Gen.  xii.  1-3. 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      299 

the  probable.  At  the  time  the  call  was  adressed  to  Abraham, 
he  was  already  seventy-five  years  old,  and  his  wife  Sarah,  being 
only  ten  years  younger,  must  have  been  sixty-five.1  For  such 
persons  to  be  constituted  parents,  and  parents  of  an.  offspring 
that  should  become  a  great  nation,  involved  at  the  very  out- 
set a  natural  impossibility,  and  could  only  be  made  good  by 
a  supernatural  exercise  of  divine  omnipotence — a  miracle. 
Nor  was  it  materially  different  in  regard  to  the  other  part  of 
the  promise;  for  it  is  expressly  stated,  when  the  particular 
land  to  be  given  was  pointed  out  to  him,  that  the  Canaan- 
ite  was  then  in  the  land.2  It  was  even  then  an  inhabited  ter- 
ritory, and  by  no  ordinary  concurrence  of  events  could  be  ex- 
pected to  become  the  heritage  of  the  yet  unborn  posterity  of 
Abraham.  It  could  only  be  looked  for  as  the  result  of  God's 
direct  and  special  interposition  in  their  behalf. 

Yet,  incredible  as  the  promise  seemed  in  both  of  its  de- 
partments, Abraham  believed  the  word  spoken  to  him;  he 
had  faith  to  accredit  the  divine  testimony,  and  to  take  the 
part  which  it  assigned  him.  Both  were  acquired — a  receiv- 
ing of  the  promise  first,  and  then  an  acting  with  a  view  to 
it;  for,  on  the  ground  of  such  great  things  being  destined 
for  him,  he  was  commanded  to  leave  his  proper  home  and 
kindred,  and  go  forth  under  the  divine  guidance  to  the  new  ter- 
ritory to  be  assigned  him.  In  this  command  was  discovered 
the  inseparable  connection  between  faith  and  holiness ;  or  be- 
tween the  call  of  Abraham  to  receive  distinguishing  and  super- 
natural blessing,  and  his  call  to  lead  a  life  of  sincere  and  de- 
voted obedience.  He  was  singled  out  from  the  world's  in- 
habitants to  begin  a  new  order  of  things,  which  were  to  bear 
throughout  the  impress  of  God's  special  grace  and  almighty 
power ;  and  he  must  separate  himself  from  the  old  things  of 
nature,  to  be  in  his  life  the  representative  of  God's  holiness, 
as  in  his  destiny  he  was  to  be  the  monument  of  God's  power 
and  goodness. 

It  is  this  exercise  of  faith  in  Abraham  which  is  first  exhib- 
ited in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  as  bespeaking  a  mighty 
energy  in  its  working ;  the  more  especially  as  the  exchange 
in  the  case  of  Abraham  and  his  immediate  descendants  did 
not  prove  by  any  means  agreeable  to  nature.  "By  faith 
Abraham,  when  he  was  called  to  go  out  into  a  place  which 
he  should  after  receive  for  an  inheritance,  obeyed;  and  he 
went  out,  not  knowing  whither  he  went.  By  faith  he  so- 
journed in  the  land  of  promise,  as  in  a  strange  country, 
dwelling  in  tabernacles  with  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  the  heirs 

i  Gen-  xii.  4,  xvii.  17.  *  Glen.  xii.  6. 


300  -THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

with  him  of  the  same  promise."  It  may  seem,  indeed,  at 
this  distance  of  place  and  time,  as  if  there  were  no  great  dif- 
ference in  the  condition  of  Abraham  and  his  household,  in  the 
one  place  as  compared  with  the  other.  But  it  was  quite  oth- 
erwise in  reality.  They  had,  first  of  all,  to  break  asunder 
the  ties  of  home  and  kindred,  which  nature  always  shrinks 
from,  especially  in  mature  age,  even  though  it  may  have  the 
prospect  before  it  of  a  comfortable  settlement  in  another  re- 
gion. This  sacrifice  they  had  to  make  in  the  fullest  sense ; 
it  was  in  their  case  a  strictly  final  separation ;  they  were  to 
be  absolutely  done  with  the  old  and  its  endearments,  and  to 
cleave  henceforth  to  the  new.  Not  only  so,  but  their  imme- 
diate position  in  the  new  was  not  like  that  which  they  had 
formerly  in  the  old ;  settled  possessions  in  the  one,  but  in  the 
other  only  a  kind  of  tolerated  position,  mere  lodging-room 
among  strangers,  and  a  life  on  providence.  Nature  does  not 
love  a  change  like  that,  and  can  only  regard  it  as  quitting 
the  certainties  of  sight  for  the  seeming  wwcertainties  of  faith 
and  hope.  These,  however,  were  still  but  the  smaller  trials 
which  Abraham's  faith  had  to  encounter ;  for,  along  with  the 
change  in  his  outward  condition,  there  came  responsibilities 
and  duties  altogether  alien  to  nature's  feelings,  and  contrary 
to  its  spirit.  In  his  old  country  he  followed  his  own  way, 
and  walked  after  the  course  of  the  world,  having  no  special 
work  to  do,  nor  any  calling  of  a  more  solemn  kind  to  fulfil. 
But  now,  by  obeying  the  call  of  Heaven,  he  was  brought  into 
immediate  connection  with  a  spiritual  and  holy  God,  became 
charged  in  a  manner  with  His  interest  in  the  world,  and 
bound,  in  the  face  of  surrounding  enmity  or  scorn,  faith- 
fully to  maintain  His  cause,  and  promote  the  glory  of  His 
name.  To  do  this  was  in  truth  to  renounce  nature,  and  rise 
superior  to  it.  And  it  was  done,  let  it  be  remembered,  out 
of  regard  to  prospects  which  could  only  be  realized  if  the 
power  of  God  should  forsake  its  wonted  channels  of  working, 
and  perform  what  the  carnal  mind  would  have  deemed  it 
infatuation  to  look  for.  Even  in  that  first  stage  of  the  pa- 
triarch's course,  there  was  a  noble  triumph  of  faith,  and  the 
earnest  of  a  life  replenished  with  the  fruits  of  righteousness. 
It  is  true,  the  promise  thus  given  at  the  commencement 
was  not  uniformly  sustained;  and  Abraham  was  not  long  in 
Canaan  till  there  seemed  to  be  a  failure  on  the  part  of  God 
toward  him,  and  there  actually  was  a  failure  on  his  part 
toward  God.  The  occurrence  of  a  famine  leads  him  to  take 
refuge  for  a  time  in  Egypt,  which  was  even  then  the  granary 
of  that  portion  of  the  East ;  and  he  is  tempted,  through  fear 
of  his  personal  safety,  to  equivocate  regarding  Sarah,  and 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      301 

call  her  his  sister.  The  equivocation  is  certainly  not  to  be 
justified,  either  on  this  or  on  the  future  occasion  on  which  it 
was  again  resorted  to ;  for  though  it  contained  a  half  truth, 
this  was  so  employed  as  to  render  "  the  half  truth  a  whole 
lie."  We  are  rather  to  refer  both  circumstances — his  repair- 
ing to  Egypt,  and  when  there  betaking  to  such  a  worldly 
expedient  for  safety — as  betraying  the  imperfection  of  his 
faith,  which,  while  strong  enough  to  set  him  on  this  new 
course  of  separation  from  the  world  and  devotedness  to  God, 
still  wanted  clearness  of  discernment  and  implicitness  of  trust 
sufficient  to  meet  the  unexpected  difficulties  that  so  early  pre- 
sented themselves  in  the  way.  Strange  indeed  had  it  been 
otherwise !  It  was  necessary  that  the  faith  of  Abraham,  like 
that  of  believers  generally,  should  learn  by  experience,  and 
even  grow  by  its  temporary  defeats.  The  first  failure  on  the 
present  occasion  stood  in  his  seeking  relief  from  the  emer- 
gency that  arose  by  withdrawing,  without  the  divine  sanc- 
tion, to  another  country  than  that  into  which  he  had  been 
conducted  by  the  special  providence  of  God.  Instead  of  look- 
ing up  for  direction  and  support,  he  betook  to  worldly  shifts 
and  expedients,  and  thus  became  entangled  in  difficulties, 
out  of  which  the  immediate  interposition  of  God  alone  could 
have  rescued  him.  In  this  way,  however,  the  result  proved 
beneficial.  Abraham  was  made  to  feel,  in  the  first  instance, 
that  his  backsliding  had  reproved  him ;  and  then  the  merciful 
interposition  of  Heaven,  rebuking  even  a  king  for  his  sake, 
taught  him  the  lesson,  that  with  the  God  of  heaven  upon  his 
side,  he  had  no  need  to  be  afraid  for  the  outward  evils  that 
might  beset  him  in  his  course.  He  had  but  to  look  up  in 
faith,  and  get  the  direction  or  support  that  he  needed. 

The  conduct  of  Abraham,  immediately  after  his  return  to 
Canaan,  gave  ample  evidence  of  the  general  steadfastness  and 
elevated  purity  of  his  course.  Though  travelling  about  as  a 
stranger  in  the  land,  he  makes  all  around  him  feel  that  it  is 
a  blessed  thing  to  be  connected  with  him,  and  that  it  would 
be  well  for  them  if  the  land  really  were  in  his  possession. 
The  quarrel  that  presently  arose  between  Lot's  herdsmen  and 
his  own,  merely  furnished  the  occasion  for  his  disinterested 
generosity,  in  waiving  his  own  rights,  and  allowing  to  his 
kinsman  the  priority  and  freedom  of  choice.  And  another 
quarrel  of  a  graver  kind — that  of  the  war  between  the  four 
kings  in  higher  Asia,  and  of  the  five  small  dependent  sover- 
eigns in  the  south  of  Canaan — drew  forth  still  nobler  manifes- 
tations of  the  large  and  self-sacrificing  spirit  that  filled  his 
bosom.  Regarding  the  unjust  capture  of  Lot  as  an  adequate 
for  taking  part  in  the  conflict,  he  went  courageously 


302  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCULPTURE. 

forth  with  his  little  band  of  trained  servants,  overthrew  the 
conquerors,  and  recovered  all  that  had  been  lost  Yet,  at  the 
very  moment  he  displayed  the  victorious  energy  of  his  faith, 
by  discomfiting  this  mighty  army,  how  strikingly  did  he  at 
the  same  time  exhibit  its  patience  in  declining  to  use  the  ad- 
vantage he  then  gained  to  hasten  forward  the  purposes  of 
God  concerning  his  possession  of  the  land,  and  its  moderation 
of  spirit,  its  commanding  superiority  to  merely  worldly  ends 
and  objects,  in  refusing  to  take  even  the  smallest  portion  of 
the  goods  of  the  king  of  Sodom !  Nay,  so  far  from  seeking 
to  exalt  self  by  pressing  outward  advantages  and  worldly 
resources,  his  spirit  of  faith,  leading  him  to  recognize  the 
hand  of  God  in  the  success  that  had  been  won,  causes  him 
to  bow  down  in  humility,  and  do  homage  to  the  Most  High 
God  in  the  person  of  His  priest  Melchizedek.  He  gave  this 
Melchizedek  tithes  of  all,  and  as  himself  the  less,  received 
blessing  from  Melchizedek  as  the  greater. 

Viewed  thus  merely  as  a  mark  of  the  humble  and  rever- 
ent spirit  of  Abraham,  the  offspring  of  his  faith  in  God,  this 
notice  of  his  relation  to  Melchizedek  is  interesting.  But  other 
things  of  a  profounder  nature  were  wrapt  up  in  the  trans- 
action, which  the  pen  of  inspiration  did  not  fail  afterwards 
to  elicit,1  and  which  it  is  proper  to  glance  at  before  we  pass 
on  to  another  stage  of  the  patriarch's  history.  The  extraor- 
dinary circumstance  of  such  a  person  as  a  priest  of  the  Most 
High  God,  whom  even  Abraham  acknowledged  to  be  such, 
starting  up  all  at  once  in  the  devoted  land  of  Canaan,  and 
vanishing  out  of  sight  almost  as  soon  as  he  appeared,  has 
given  rise,  from  the  earliest  times,  to  numberless  conjectures. 
Ham,  Shem,  Noah,  Enoch,  an  angel,  Christ,  the  Holy  Spirit, 
have  each,  in  the  hands  of  different  persons,  been  identified 
with  this  Melchizedek ;  but  the  view  now  almost  universally 
acquiesced  in  is,  that  he  was  simply  a  Canaanite  sovereign, 
who  combined  with  his  royal  dignity  as  king  of  Salem  *  the 
office  of  a  true  priest  of  God.  No  other  supposition,  indeed, 

1  Ps.  ex.  4;  Heb.  vii. 

z  No  stress  is  laid  on  the  particular  place  of  which  he  was  king,  excepting 
that,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  its  meaning  (Peace)  is  viewed  as  symbol- 
ic;— only,  however,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  out  the  idea,  that  this  singu- 
lar person  was  really  what  his  name  and  the  name  of  his  place  imported.  He 
was  in  reality  a  righteous  king,  and  a  prince  of  peace.  But  there  seems  good 
reason  to  believe  the  Jewish  tradition  well  founded,  that  Salem  is  the  abbre- 
viated name  of  Jerusalem.  Hence  it  is  put  for  Jerusalem  in  Ps.  Ixxvi.  2.  And 
the  correctness  of  the  opinion  is  confirmed  by  the  mention  of  the  king's  dale, 
in  Gen.  xiv.  17,  which  from  2  Sam.  xviii.  18  can  scarcely  be  supposed  to  have 
been  far  from  Jerusalem.  The  name  also  of  Adonaizedek,  svnonymous  with 
Melchizedek,  as  that  of  the  king  of  Jerusalem  in  Joshua's  tune  (Josh.  x.  3). 
is  a  still  further  confirmation. 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      303 

affords  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  narrative.  The  verv 
silence  observed  regarding  his  origin,  and  the  manner  of  his 
appointment  to  the  priesthood,  was  intentional,  and  served 
both  to  stimulate  thought  concerning  the  circumstances  of 
the  case,  and  to  bring  it  into  a  closer  correspondence  with 
the  ultimate  realities.  The  more  remarkable  peculiarity  was, 
that  to  this  person,  simply  because  he  was  a  righteous  king 
and  priest  of  the  Most  High  God,  Abraham,  the  elect  of  God, 
the  possessor  of  the  promises,  paid  tithes,  and  received  from 
him  a  blessing ;  and  did  it,  too,  at  the  very  time  he  stood  so 
high  in  honor,  and  kept  himself  so  carefully  aloof  from  an- 
other king  then  present — the  king  of  Sodom.  He  placed 
himself  as  conspicuously  below  the  one  personage  as  he  raised 
himself  above  the  other.  Why  should  he  have  done  so  ?  Be- 
cause Melchizedek  already  in  a  measure  possessed  what  Abra- 
ham still  only  hoped  for — he  reigned  where  Abraham's  seed 
were  destined  to  reign,  and  exercised  a  priesthood  which  in 
future  generations  was  to  be  committed  to  them.  The  union 
of  the  two  in  Melchizedek  was  in  itself  a  great  thing — greater 
than  the  separate  offices  of  king  and  priest  in  the  houses  re- 
spectively of  David  and  Aaron ;  but  it  was  an  expiring  great- 
ness: it  was  like  the  last  blossom  on  the  old  rod  of  Noah, 
which  thenceforth  became  as  a  dry  tree.  In  Abraham,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  the  germ  of  a  new  and  higher  order  of  things 
— the  promise,  though  still  only  the  budding  promise,  of  a 
better  inheritance  of  messing ;  and  when  the  seed  should  come 
in  whom  the  promise  was  more  especially  to  stand,  then  the 
more  general  and  comprehensive  aspect  of  the  Melchizedek 
order  was  to  reappear,  and  find  its  embodiment  in  one  who 
could  at  once  place  it  on  firmer  ground,  and  carry  it  to  un- 
speakably higher  results.  Here,  then,  was  a  sacred  enigma 
for  the  heart  of  faith  to  ponder,  and  for  the  spirit  of  truth 
gradually  to  unfold :  Abraham,  in  one  respect,  relatively  great, 
and  in  another  relatively  little;  personally  inferior  to  Mel- 
chizedek, and  yet  the  root  of  a  seed  that  was  to  do  for  the 
world  incomparably  more  than  Melchizedek  had  done ;  him- 
self the  type  of  a  higher  than  Melchizedek,  and  yet  Melchiz- 
edek a  more  peculiar  type  than  he !  It  was  a  mystery  that 
could  be  disclosed  only  in  partial  glimpses  beforehand,  but 
which  now  has  become  comparatively  plain  by  the  person 
and  work  of  Immanuel.  What  but  the  wonder-working  fin- 
ger of  God  could  have  so  admirably  fitted  the  past  to  be  such 
a  singular  image  of  the  future  ! 

There  are  points  connected  with  this  subject  that  will  nat- 
urally fall  to  be  noticed  at  a  later  period,  when  we  come  to 
treat  of  the  Aaronic  priesthood,  and  other  points  also,  though 


304  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

of  a  minor  kind,  belonging  to  this  earlier  portion  of  Abra- 
ham's history,  which  we  can  not  particularly  notice.  We  pro- 
ceed to  the  second  stage  in  the  development  of  his  spiritual  life. 

2.  This  consisted  in  the  establishment  of  the  covenant  be- 
tween him  and  God;  which  falls,  however,  into  two  parts: 
one  earlier  in  point  of  time,  and  in  its  own  nature  incom- 
plete ;  the  other,  both  the  later  and  the  more  perfect  form. 

It  would  seem  as  if,  after  the  stirring  transactions  con- 
nected with  the  victory  over  Chedorlaomer  and  his  associates, 
and  the  interview  with  Melchizedek,  the  spirit  of  Abraham 
had  sunk  into  depression  and  fear;  for  the  next  notice  we 
have  respecting  him  represents  God  as  appearing  to  him  in 
vision,  and  bidding  him  not  to  be  afraid,  since  God  Himself 
was  his  shield  and  his  exceeding  great  reward.  It  is  not 
improbable  that  some  apprehension  of  a  revenge  on  the  part 
of  Chedorlaomer  might  haunt  his  bosom,  and  that  he  might 
begin  to  dread  the  result  of  such  an  unequal  contest  as  he 
had  entered  on  with  the  powers  of  the  world.  But  it  is  clear 
also,  from  the  sequel,  that  another  thing  preyed  upon  his 
spirits,  and  that  he  was  filled  with  concern  on  account  of  the 
long  delay  that  was  allowed  to  intervene  before  the  appear- 
ance of  the  promised  seed.  He  still  went  about  childless; 
and  the  thought  could  not  but  press  upon  his  mind,  of  what 
use  were  other  things  to  him,  even  of  the  most  honorable 
kind,  if  the  great  thing,  on  which  all  his  hopes  for  the  future 
turned,  were  still  withheld  ?  The  Lord  graciously  met  this 
natural  misgiving  by  the  assurance,  that  not  any  son  by  adop- 
tion merely,  but  one  from  his  own  loins,  should  be  given  him 
for  an  heir.  And  to  make  the  matter  more  palpable  to  his 
mind,  and  take  external  nature,  as  it  were,  to  witness  for  the 
fulfilment  of  the  word,  the  Lord  brought  him  forth,  and, 
pointing  to  the  stars  of  heaven,  declared  to  him,  "  So  shall 
thy  seed  be."  "And  he  believed  in  the  Lord,"  it  is  said,  "and 
He  counted  it  to  him  for  righteousness."  * 

This  historical  statement  regarding  Abraham's  faith  is  re- 
markable, as  it  is  the  one  so  strenuously  urged  by  the  apostle 
Paul  in  his  argument  for  justification  by  faith  alone  in  the 
righteousness  of  Christ."  And  the  question  has  been  keenly 
debated,  whether  it  was  the  faith  itself  which  was  in  God  s 
account  taken  for  righteousness,  or  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  Christ,  which  that  faith  prospectively  laid  hold  of.  Our 
wisdom  here,  however,  and  in  all  similar  cases,  is  not  to  press 
the  statements  of  Old  Testament  Scripture  so  as  to  render 
them  explicit  categorical  deliverances  on  Christian  doctrine, 

«  Gen.  XT.  1-d,  «  Bom.  iv.  18-22. 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      805 

— in  which  case  violence  must  inevitably  be  done  to  them, — 
but  rather  to  catch  the  general  principle  embodied  in  them, 
and  give  it  a  fair  application  to  the  more  distinct  revelations 
of  the  Gospel.  This  is  precisely  what  is  done  by  St.  Paul. 
He  does  not  say  a  word  about  the  specific  manifestation  of 
the  righteousness  of  God  in  Christ,  when  arguing  from  the 
statement  respecting  the  righteousness  of  faitn  in  Abraham. 
He  lays  stress  simply  upon  the  natural  impossibilities  that 
stood  in  the  way  01  God's  promise  of  a  numerous  offspring  to 
Abraham  being  fulfilled — the  comparative  deadness  both  of 
his  own  body  and  of  Sarah's — and  on  the  implicit  confidence 
Abraham  had,  notwithstanding,  in  the  power  and  faithful- 
ness of  God,  that  He  would  perform  what  He  had  promised. 
"  Therefore,"  adds  the  apostle,  "  it  was  imputed  to  him  for 
righteousness."  Therefore — namely,  because  through  faith 
he  so  completely  lost  sight  of  nature  and  self,  and  realized 
with  uridoubting  confidence  the  sufficiency  of  the  divine  arm, 
and  the  certainty  of  its  working.  His  faith  was  nothing 
more,  nothing  else,  than  the  renunciation  of  all  virtue  and 
strength  in  himself,  and  a  hanging  in  childlike  trust  upon 
God  for  what  He  was  able  and  willing  to  do.  Not,  there- 
fore, a  mere  substitute  for  a  righteousness  that  was  wanting, 
an  acceptance  of  something  that  could  be  had  for  something 
better  that  failed,  but  rather  the  vital  principle  of  a  right- 
eousness in  God — the  acting  of  a  soul  in  unison  with  the 
mind  of  God,  and  finding  its  life,  its  hope,  its  all  in  Him. 
Transfer  such  a  faith  to  the  field  of  the  New  Testament — 
bring  it  into  contact  with  the  manifestation  of  God  in  the 
person  and  work  of  Christ  for  the  salvation  of  the  world,  and 
what  would  inevitably  be  its  language  but  that  of  the  apostle : 
"  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory  save  in  the  cross  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ," — "  not  my  own  righteousness,  which  is  of  the 
law,  but  that  which  is  of  God  through  faith." 

To  return  to  Abraham.  When  he  had  attained  to  such 
confiding  faith  in  the  divine  word  respecting  the  promised 
seed,  the  Lord  gave  him  an  equally  distinct  assurance  respect- 
ing the  promised  land ;  and  in  answer  to  Abraham's  question, 
"Lord  God,  whereby  shall  I  know  that  I  shall  inherit  it?" 
the  Lord  "  made  a  covenant  with  him"  respecting  it,  by  means 
of  a  symbolical  sacrificial  action.  It  was  a  covenant  by  blood ; 
for  in  the  very  act  of  establishing  the  union,  it  was  meet 
there  should  be  a  reference  to  the  guilt  of  man,  and  a  provi- 
sion for  purging  it  away.  The  very  materials  of  the  sacrifice 
have  here  a  specific  meaning;  the  greater  sacrifices,  those  of 
the  heifer,  the  goat  and  the  ram,  being  expressly  fixed  to  be 
ot  three  years  old — pointing  to  the  three  generations  which 
VOL.  L— 20 


306  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Abraham's  posterity  were  to  pass  in  Egypt;  and  these,  to- 
gether with  the  turtle-dove  and  the  youiig  pigeon,  comprising 
a  full  representation  of  the  animals  afterwards  offered  in  sac- 
rifice under  the  law.  As  the  materials,  so  also  the  form  of 
the  sacrifice  was  symbolical — the  animals  being  divided  asun- 
der, and  one  piece  laid  over  against  another;  for  the  purpose 
of  more  distinctly  representing  the  two  parties  in  the  trans- 
action— two,  and  yet  one — meeting  and  acting  together  in 
one  solemn  offering.  Recognizing  Jehovah  as  the  chief  party 
in  what  was  taking  place,  Abraham  waits  for  the  divine  man- 
ifestation, and  contents  himself  with  meanwhile  driving  away 
the  ill-omened  birds  of  prey  that  flocked  around  the  sacrifice. 
At  last,  when  the  shades  of  night  had  fallen,  "  a  smoking  fur- 
nace and  a  burning  lamp  passed  between  those  pieces  " — the 
glory  of  the  Lord  Himself,  as  so  often  afterwards,  in  a  pillar 
of  cloud  and  fire.  Passing  under  this  emblem  through  the 
divided  sacrifice,  He  formally  accepted  it,  and  struck  the  cov- 
enant with  His  servant.1  At  the  same  time,  also,  a  profound 
sleep  had  fallen  upon  Abraham,  and  a  horror  of  great  dark- 
ness— symbolical  of  the  outward  humiliations  and  sufferings 
through  which  the  covenant  was  to  reach  its  accomplishment ; 
and  in  explanation  the  announcement  was  expressly  made  to 
him,  that  his  posterity  should  be  in  bondage  and  affliction 
four  hundred  years  in  a  foreign  land,  and  should  then,  in  the 
fourth  generation,  be  brought  up  from  it  with  great  sub- 
stance." In  justification,  also,  of  the  long  delay,  the  specific 
reason  was  given,  that  "  the  iniquity  of  the  Amorites  was  not 
yet  full," — plainly  importing  that  this  part  of  the  divine  pro- 
cedure had  a  moral  aim,  and  could  only  be  carried  into  effect 
in  accordance  with  the  great  principles  of  the  divine  right- 
eousness. 

The  covenant  was  thus  established  in  both  its  branches, 

1  Jer.  xxxiv.  18,  19. 

*  The  notes  of  time  here  given  for  the  period  of  the  sojourn  in  Egypt  are 
somewhat  indefinite.  The  400  years  is  plainly  mentioned  as  a  round  sum ;  it 
was  afterwards  more  precisely  and  historically  defined  as  430  (Ex.  xii.  40,  41). 
From  the  juxtaposition  of  the  400  years  and  the  fourth  generation  in  the 
words  to  Abraham,  the  one  must  be  understood  as  nearly  equivalent  to  the 
other,  and  the  period  must  consequently  be  regarded  as  that  of  the  actual 
residence  of  the  children  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  from  the  descent  of  Jacob — not, 
as  many  after  the  Septuagint,  from  the  time  of  Abraham.  For  the  shortest 
genealogies  exhibit  four  generations  between  that  period  and  the  exodus. 
Looking  at  the  genealogical  table  of  Levi  (Ex.  vi.  16  sq.),  120  years  might 
not  unfairly  be  taken  as  an  average  lifetime  or  generation;  so  that  three  of 
these  complete,  and  a  part  of  the  fourth,  would  easily  make  430.  In  GaL  iii. 
17  the  law  is  spoken  of  as  only  430  years  after  the  covenant  with  Abraham; 
but  the  apostle  merely  refers  to  the  known  historical  period,  and  regards  the 
first  formation  of  the  covenant  with  Abraham  as  all  one  with  its  final  ratifica- 
tion with  Jacob. 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      3C'~ 

yet  only  in  an  imperfect  manner,  if  respect  were  had  to  the 
coming  future,  and  even  to  the  full  bearing  and  import  of  the 
covenant  itself.  Abraham  had  got  a  present  sign  of  God's 
formally  entering  into  covenant  with  him  for  the  possession 
of  the  land  of  Canaan ;  but  it  came  and  went  like  a  troubled 
vision  of  the  night.  There  was  needed  something  of  a  more 
tangible  and  permanent  kind — an  abiding,  sacramental  cove- 
nant signature — which  by  its  formal  institution  on  God's  part, 
and  its  believing  appropriation  on  the  part  of  Abraham  and 
his  seed,  might  serve  as  a  mutual  sign  of  covenant  engage- 
ments. This  was  the  more  necessary,  as  the  next  step  in 
Abraham's  procedure  but  too  clearly  manifested  that  he  still 
wanted  light  regarding  the  nature  of  the  covenant,  and  in 
particular  regarding  the  supernatural,  the  essentially  divine, 
character  of  its  provisions.  From  the  prolonged  barrenness 
of  Sarah,  and  her  now  advanced  age,  it  began  to  be  imagined 
that  Sarah  possibly  might  not  be  included  in  the  promise, — 
the  rather  so,  as  no  express  mention  had  been  made  of  her  in 
the  previous  intimations  of  the  divine  purpose.  Despairing, 
therefore,  of  having  herself  any  share  in  the  fulfilment  of 
the  promised  word,  she  suggested  that  the  fulfilment  might 
be  sought  by  the  substitution  of  her  bondmaid  Hagar — a 
suggestion  Abraham  too  readily  adopted.  For  it  was  resort- 
ing again  to  an  expedient  of  the  flesh  to  get  over  a  present 
difficulty,  and  it  was  soon  followed  by  its  meet  retribution  in 
providence — domestic  troubles  and  vexations.  The  bondmaid 
had  been  raised  out  of  her  proper  place,  and  began  to  treat 
Sarah,  the  legitimate  spouse  of  Abraham,  with  contempt. 
And  had  she  even  repressed  her  improper  feelings,  and 
brought  forth  a  child  in  the  midst  of  domestic  peace  and 
harmony,  yet  a  son  so  born — after  the  ordinary  course  of 
nature,  and  in  compliance  with  one  of  her  corrupter  usages 
— could  not  have  been  allowed  to  stand  as  the  representative 
of  that  seed  through  which  blessing  was  to  come  to  the 
world. 

On  both  accounts,  therefore — first,  to  give  more  explicit 
information  regarding  the  son  to  be  born,  and  then  to  provide 
a  significant  and  lasting  signature  of  the  covenant — another 
and  more  perfect  ratification  of  it  took  place.  The  word 
which  introduced  this  new  scene,  expressed  the  substance 
and  design  of  the  whole  transaction:  "  I  am  God  Almighty; 
walk  before  me,  and  be  thou  perfect: "' — On  my  part  there  is 
power  amply  sufficient  to  accomplish  what  I  have  promised: 
whatever  natural  difficulties  may  stand  in  the  way,  the  whole 

1  Gen.  xvii.  1. 


808  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUEE. 

shall  assuredly  be  done;  only  see  that  on  your  part  there  be  a 
habitual  recognition  of  my  presence,  and  a  steadfast  adher- 
ence to  the  path  of  rectitude  and  purity.  What  follows  if 
simply  a  filling  up  of  this  general  outline — a  more  particu- 
lar announcement  of  what  God  on  His  part  should  do,  and 
then  of  what  Abraham  and  his  posterity  were  to  do  on  the 
other.  "  As  for  me  "  (literally,  I — i.  e.,  on  my  part),  " behold, 
my  covenant  is  with  tnee,  and  thou  shalt  be  a  father  of  many 
nations.  Neither  shall  thy  name  any  more  be  called  Abram ; 
but  thy  name  shall  be  Abraham :  for  a  father  of  many  nations 
have  I  made  thee.  And  I  will  make  thee  exceeding  fruitful, 
and  I  will  make  nations  of  thee,  and  kings  shall  come  out 
of  thee,  and  I  will  establish  mv  covenant  between  me  and 
thee,  and  thy  seed  after  thee,  in  their  generations,  for  an 
everlasting  covenant,  to  be  a  God  unto  thee,  and  to  thy  seed 
after  thee.  And  I  will  give  unto  thee,  and  to  thy  seed  after 
thee,  the  land  wherein  thou  art  a  stranger,  all  the  land  of 
Canaan,  for  an  everlasting  possession;  and  I  will  be  their 
God."  This  was  God's  part  in  the  covenant,  to  which  He 
immediately  subjoined,  by  way  of  explanation,  that  the  seed 
more  especially  meant  in  the  promise  was  to  be  of  Sarah  as 
well  as  Abraham ;  that  she  was  to  renew  her  youth,  and  have 
a  son,  and  that  her  name  also  was  to  be  changed  in  accord- 
ance with  her  new  position.  Then  follows  what  was  expect- 
ed and  required  on  the  other  side:  "And  God  said  unto 
Abraham,  And  thou  "  (this  now  is  thy  part),  "  my  covenant 
shalt  thou  keep,  thou,  and  thy  seed  after  tnee;  Every  male 
among  you  shall  be  circumcised.  And  ye  shall  circumcise 
the  flesh  of  your  foreskin ;  and  it  shall  be  for  a  covenant-sign 
betwixt  me  and  you.  And  he  that  is  eight  days  old  shall  be 
circumcised  to  you,  every  male  in  your  generations;  he  that 
is  born  in  the  house,  or  bought  with  money  of  any  stranger, 
that  is  not  of  thy  seed.  ....  And  my  covenant  shall 
be  in  your  flesh  for  an  everlasting  covenant.  And  uncircum- 
cision"  (i.  e.,  pollution,  abomination)  "is  the  male  who  is  not 
circumcised  in  the  flesh  of  his  foreskin ;  and  cut  off  is  that 
soul  from  his  people;  he  has  broken  my  covenant." 

There  is  no  need  for  going  into  the  question  whether  this 
ordinance  of  circumcision  was  now  for  the  first  time  introduced 
among  men;  or  whether  it  was  already  to  some  extent  in  use, 
and  was  simply  adopted  by  God  as  a  nt  and  significant  token 
of  His  covenant.  It  is  comparatively  of  little  moment  how 
such  a  question  may  be  decided.  The  same  principle  way 
have  been  acted  on  here,  which  undoubtedly  had  a  place  in 
the  modelling  of  the  Mosaic  institutions,  and  which  will  be 
discussed  and  vindicated  when  we  come  to  consider  the  influ- 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      309 

ence  exercised  by  the  learning  of  Moses  on  his  subsequent 
legislation — the  principle,  namely,  of  taking  from  the  prov- 
ince of  religion  generally  a  symbolical  sign  or  action,  that 
was  capable,  when  associated  with  the  true  religion,  of  fitly 
expressing  its  higher  truths  and  principles.  The  probability 
is,  that  this  principle  was  recognized  and  acted  on  here.  Cir- 
cumcision has  been  practiced  among  classes  of  people  and  na- 
tions who  can  not  reasonably  be  supposed  to  have  derived  it 
from  the  family  of  Abraham — among  the  ancients,  for  ex- 
ample, by  the  Egyptian  priesthood,  and  among  the  moderns 
by  native  tribes  in  America  and  the  islands  of  the  Pacific. 
Its  extensive  prevalence  and  long  continuance  can  only  be 
accounted  for  on  the  ground  that  it  has  a  foundation  in  the 
workings  of  the  natural  conscience,  which,  like  the  distinc- 
tions into  clean  and  unclean,  or  the  presentation  of  tithes, 
may  have  led  to  its  employment  before  the  time  of  Abraham, 
and  also  fitted  it  afterwards  for  serving  as  the  peculiar  sign 
of  God's  covenant  with  him.  At  the  same  time,  as  it  was 
henceforth  intended  to  be  a  distinctive  badge  of  covenant 
relationship,  it  could  not  have  been  generally  practiced  in  the 
region  where  the  chosen  family  were  called  to  live  and  act. 
From  the  purpose  to  which  it  was  applied,  we  may  certainly 
infer  that  it  formed  at  once  an  appropriate  and  an  easily 
recognized  distinction  between  the  race  of  Abraham  and 
the  families  and  nations  by  whom  they  were  more  immedi- 
ately surrounded. 

Among  the  race  of  Abraham,  however,  it  had  the  widest 
application  given  to  it.  While  God  so  far  identified  it  with 
His  covenant  as  to  suspend  men's  interest  in  the  one  upon 
their  observance  of  the  other,  it  was  with  His  covenant  in  its 
wider  aspect  and  bearing — not  simply  as  securing  either  an 
offspring  after  the  flesh,  or  the  inheritance  for  that  offspring 
of  the  land  of  Canaan.  It  was  comparatively  but  a  limited 
portion  of  Abraham's  actual  offspring  who  were  destined  to 
grow  into  a  separate  nation,  and  occupy  as  their  home  the 
territory  of  Canaan.  At  the  very  outset  Ishmael  was  ex- 
cluded, though  constituted  the  head  of  a  great  nation.  And 
yet  not  only  he,  but  all  the  members  of  Abraham's  household, 
were  alike  ordered  to  receive  the  covenant  signature.  Nay, 
even  in  later  times,  when  the  children  of  Israel  had  grown 
into  a  distinct  people,  and  every  thing  was  placed  under  the 
strict  administration  of  law,  it  was  always  left  open  to  people 
of  other  lands  and  tribes  to  enter  into  the  bonds  of  the  cove- 
nant through  the  rite  of  circumcision.  This  rite,  therefore, 
must  have  had  a  significance  for  them,  as  well  as  for  the  more 
favored  seed  of  Jacob  It  spoke  also  to  their  hearts  and  con- 


310  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUKE. 

sciences,  and  virtually  declared  that  the  covenant  which  it 
symbolized  had  nothing  in  its  main  design  of  an  exclusive 
and  contracted  spirit ;  that  its  greater  things  lay  open  to  all 
who  were  willing  to  seek  them  in  the  appointed  way;  and 
that  if  at  first  there  were  individual  persons,  and  afterwards 
a  single  people,  who  were  more  especially  identified  with  the 
covenant,  it  was  only  to  mark  them  out  as  the  chosen  repre- 
sentatives of  its  nature  and  objects,  and  to  constitute  them 
lights  for  the  instruction  and  benefit  of  others.  There  never 
was  a  more  evident  misreading  of  the  palpable  facts  of  history 
than  appears  in  the  disposition  so  often  manifested  to  limit  t 
the  rite  of  circumcision  to  one  line  merely  of  Abraham's  pos- 
terity, and  to  regard  it  as  the  mere  outward  badge  of  an 
external  national  distinction. 

It  is  to  be  held,  then,  as  certain  in  regard  to  the  sign  of 
the  covenant  as  in  regard  to  the  covenant  itself,  that  its  more 
special  and  marked  connection  with  individuals  was  only  for 
the  sake  of  more  effectually  helping  forward  its  general  design. 
And  not  less  firmly  is  it  to  be  held  that  the  outwardness  in  the 
rite  was  for  the  sake  of  the  inward  and  spiritual  truths  it  sym- 
bolized. It  was  appointed  as  the  distinctive  badge  of  the  cove- 
nant, because  it  was  peculiarly  fitted  for  symbolically  express- 
ing the  spiritual  character  and  design  of  the  covenant.  It 
marked  the  condition  of  every  one  who  received  it,  as  having 
to  do  both  with  higher  powers  and  higher  objects  than  those 
of  corrupt  nature,  as  the  condition  of  one  brought  into  blessed 
fellowship  with  God,  and  therefore  called  to  walk  before  Him 
and  be  perfect.  There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  perceiving 
this,  nor  any  material  difference  of  opinion  upon  the  subject, 
if  people  would  but  look  beneath  the  surface,  and,  in  the  true 
spirit  of  the  ancient  religion,  would  contemplate  the  outward 
as  an  image  of  the  inward.  The  general  purport  of  the  cove- 
nant was,  that  from  Abraham  as  an  individual  there  was  to 
be  generated  a  seed  of  blessing,  in  which  all  real  blessing 
was  to  centre,  and  from  which  it  was  to  flow  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth.  There  could  not,  therefore,  be  a  more  appropriate 
sign  of  the  covenant  than  this  rite  of  circumcision — so  di- 
rectly connected  with  the  generation  of  offspring,  and  so  dis- 
tinctly marking  the  necessary  purification  of  nature — the  re- 
moval of  the  filth  of  the  flesh — that  the  offspring  might  be 
such  as  really  to  constitute  a  seed  of  blessing;  It  is  through 
ordinary  generation  that  the  corruption  incident  on  the  fall 
is  propagated ;  and  hence,  under  the  law,  which  contained  a 
regular  system  of  symbolical  teaching,  there  were  so  many 
'^nasions  of  defilement  originating  in  this  source,  and  so  many 
'aeans  ol  purification  appointed  for  them.  Now,  therefore, 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      811 

when  God  was  establishing  a  covenant,  the  great  object  of 
which  was  to  reverse  the  propagation  of  evil,  to  secure  a  seed 
that  should  be  itself  blessed,  and  a  source  of  blessing  to  the 
world,  He  affixed  to  the  covenant  this  symbolical  rite — to  show 
that  the  end  was  to  be  reached,  not  as  the  result  of  nature's 
ordinary  productiveness,  but  of  nature  purged  from  its  un- 
cleanness — nature  raised  above  itself,  in  league  with  the  grace 
of  God,  and  bearing  on  it  the  distinctive  impress  of  His  char- 
acter and  working.  It  taught  the  circumcised  man  to  re- 
gard Jehovah  as  his  bridegroom,  to  whom  he  had  become 
espoused,  as  it  were,  by  blood,  and  than  he  must  no  longer 
follow  the  unregulated  will  and  impulse  of  nature,  but  live 
in  accordance  with  the  high  relation  he  occupied,  and  the 
sacred  calling  he  had  received.1 

Most  truly,  therefore,  does  the  apostle  say  that  Abraham 
received  circumcision  as  a  seal  of  the  righteousness  of  the 
faith  which  he  had 2 — a  divine  token  in  his  own  case  that  he 
had  attained  through  faith  to  such  fellowship  with  God,  and 
righteousness  in  Him — and  a  token  for  every  child  that  should 
afterwards  receive  it;  not  indeed  that  he  actually  possessed 
the  same,  but  that  he  was  called  to  possess  it,  and  had  a  right 
to  the  privileges  and  hopes  which  might  enable  him  to  attain 
to  the  possession.  Most  truly  also  does  the  apostle  say  in 
another  place  :*  "  He  is  not  a  Jew  which  is  one  outwardly  (t.  e., 
not  a  Jew  in  the  right  sense,  not  such  an  one  as  God  would 
recognize  and  own);  neither  is  that  circumcision  which  is  out- 
ward in  the  flesh:  But  he  is  a  Jew  which  is  one  inwardly:  and 
circumcision  is  that  of  the  heart,  in  the  spirit,  and  not  in  the 
letter;  whose  praise  is  not  of  men,  but  of  God."  The  very 
design  of  the  covenant  was  to  secure  a  seed  with  these  inward 
and  spiritual  characteristics;  and  the  sign  of  the  covenant,  the 
outward  impression  in  the  flesh,  was  worthless,  a  mere  exter- 
nal concision — as  the  apostle  calls  it,  when  it  came  to  be 
alone4 — excepting  in  so  far  as  it  was  the  expression  of  the 
corresponding  reality.  Isaac,  the  first  child  of  promise,  was 
the  fitting  type  of  such  a  covenant.  In  the  peculiarities  con- 

1  Ex.  iv.  25.  It  may  also  be  noted,  that  by  this  quite  natural  and  funda- 
mental view  of  the  ordinance,  subordinate  peculiarities  admit  of  an  easy  ex- 
planation. For  example,  the  limitation  of  the  sign  to  males — which  in  the 
circumstances  could  not  be  otherwise;  though  the  special  purifications  under 
the  law  for  women  might  justly  be  regarded  as  providing  for  them  a  sort  of 
counterpart.  Then,  the  fixing  on  the  eighth  day  as  the  proper  one  for  the  rite 
— that  being  the  first  day  after  the  revolution  of  an  entire  week  of  separation 
from  the  mother,  and  when  fully  withdrawn  from  connection  with  the  par- 
ent's blood,  it  began  to  live  and  breathe  in  its  own  impurity.  (See  farther 
Imperial  Bible  Diet.,  art  Circumcision.) 

*  Bom.  iv.  11.  3  Bom.  ii.  28,  29.  «  Phil  iii.  2. 


312  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUBR 

nected  with  his  entrance  into  life,  lie  was  a  sign  to  all  comiLg 
ages  of  what  the  covenant  required  and  sought; — not  begot- 
ten till  Abraham  himself  bore  the  symbol  of  nature's  purifi- 
cation, nor  born  till  it  was  evident  the  powers  of  nature  must 
have  been  miraculously  vivified  for  the  purpose;  so  that  in 
his  very  conception  and  birth  Isaac  was  emphatically  a  child 
of  God.  But  in  being  so,  he  was  the  exact  type  of  what  the 
covenant  properly  aimed  at,  and  what  its  expressive  symbol 
betokened,  viz.,  a  spiritual  seed,  in  which  the  divine  and  hu- 
man, grace  and  nature,  should  meet  together  in  producing 
true  subjects  and  channels  of  blessing.  But  its  actual  repre- 
sentation— the  one  complete  and  perfect  embodiment  of  all 
it  symbolized  and  sought — was  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in 
whom  the  divine  and  human  met  from  the  first,  not  in  co- 
operative merely,  but  in  organic  union;  and  consequently 
the  result  produced  was  a  Being  free  from  all  taint  of  corrup- 
tion, holy,  harmless,  undefiled,  the  express  image  of  the 
Father,  the  very  righteousness  of  God.  He  alone  fully  real- 
ized the  conditions  of  blessing  exhibited  in  the  covenant,  and 
was  qualified  to  be  in  the  largest  sense  the  seed-corn  of  a 
harvest  of  blessing  for  the  whole  field  of  humanity. 

It  is  true — and  those  who  take  their  notions  of  realities 
from  appearances  alone,  will  doubtless  reckon  it  a  sufficient 
reply  to  what  has  been  said — that  the  portion  of  Abraham's 
seed  who  afterwards  became  distinctively  the  covenant  peo- 
ple— Israel  after  the  flesh — were  by  no  means  such  subjects 
and  channels  of  blessing  as  we  have  described,  but  were  to  a 
large  extent  carnal,  having  only  that  circumcision  which  is 
outward  in  the  flesh.  What  then  ?  Had  they  still  a  title  to 
be  recognized  as  the  children  of  the  covenant,  and  a  right, 
as  such,  to  the  temporal  inheritance  connected  with  it  ?  By 
no  means.  This  were  substantially  to  make  void  God's  ordi- 
nance, which  could  not,  any  more  than  His  other  ordinances, 
be  merely  outward.  It  arises  from  His  essential  nature,  as  the 
God  of  righteousness  and  truth,  that  He  should  ever  require 
from  His  people  what  is  accordant  with  His  own  character; 
arid  that  when  He  appoints  outward  signs  and  ordinances,  it 
is  only  with  a  view  to  spiritual  and  moral  ends.  Where  the 
outward  alone  exists,  He  can  not  own  its  validity.  Christ  cer- 
tainly did  not.  For,  when  arguing  with  the  Jews  of  His  own 
day,  He  denied  on  this  very  ground  that  their  circumcision 
made  them  the  children  of  Abraham :  they  were  not  of  his 
spirit,  and  did  not  perform  his  works;  and  so,  in  Christ's  ac- 
count, their  natural  connection  both  with  Abraham  and  with 
the  covenant  went  for  nothing.1  Their  circumcision  was  a 
>  John.  viii.  34-44. 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      31b 

sign  without  any  signification.  And  if  so  then,  it  must  equally 
have  been  so  in  former  times.  The  children  of  Israel  had  no 
right  to  the  benefits  of  the  covenant  merely  because  they  had 
been  outwardly  circumcised ;  nor  were  any  promises  made  to 
them  simply  as  the  natural  seed  of  Abraham.  Both  elements 
had  to  meet  in  their  condition,  the  natural  and  the  spiritual ; 
the  spiritual,  however,  more  especially,  and  the  natural  only 
as  connected  with  the  spiritual,  and  a  means  for  securing  it. 
Hence  Moses  urged  them  so  earnestly  to  circumcise  their 
Jiearte,  as  absolutely  necessary  to  their  getting  the  fulfilment 
of  what  was  promised ; *  and  when  the  people  as  a  whole  had 
manifestly  not  done  this,  circumcision  itself,  the  sign  of  the 
covenant,  was  suspended  for  a  season,  and  the  promises  of  the 
covenant  were  held  in  abeyance,  till  they  should  come  to  learn 
aright  the  real  nature  of  their  calling.*  Throughout,  it  was 
the  election  withm  the  election  who  realty  had  the  promises 
and  the  covenants;  and  none  but  those  in  whom,  through 
the  special  working  of  God's  grace,  nature  was  sanctified  and 
raised  to  another  position  than  itself  could  ever  have  attained, 
were  entitled  to  the  blessing.  If  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  they 
existed  by  sufferance  merely,  and  not  by  right. 

The  bearing  of  all  this  on  the  ordinance  of  Christian  baptism 
can  not  be  overlooked,  but  it  may  still  be  mistaken.  The  re- 
lation between  circumcision  and  baptism  is  not  properly  that 
of  type  and  antitype;  the  one  is  a  symbolical  ordinance  as 
well  as  the  other,  and  both  alike  have  an  outward  form  and 
an  inward  reality.  It  is  precisely  in  such  ordinances  that  the 
Old  and  the  New  Dispensations  approach  nearest  to  each  other, 
and,  we  might  almost  say,  stand  formally  upon  the  same  level. 
The  difference  does  not  so  much  lie  in  the  ordinances  them- 
selves, as  in  the  comparative  amount  of  grace  and  truth  respect- 
ively exhibited  in  them — necessarily  less  in  the  earlier,  and 
more  in  the  later.  The  difference  in  external  form  was  in 
each  case  conditioned  by  the  circumstances  of  the  time.  In 
circumcision  it  bore  respect  to  the  propagation  of  offspring, 
as  it  was  through  the  production  of  a  seed  of  blessing  that 
the  covenant,  in  its  preparatory  form,  was  to  attain  its  realiza- 
tion. But  when  the  seed  in  that  respect  had  reached  its  cul- 
minating point  in  Christ,  and  the  objects  of  the  covenant  were 
no  longer  dependent  on  natural  propagation  of  seed,  but  were 
to  be  carried  forward  by  spiritual  means  and  influences  used 
in  connection  with  the  faith  of  Christ,  the  external  ordinance 
was  fitly  altered,  so  as  to  express  simply  a  change  of  nature 
and  state  in  the  individual  that  received  it.  Undoubtedly  the 
New  Testament  form  less  distinctly  recognizes  the  connection 
1  Deut  x.  16.  »  Josh.  v.  3-9. 


314  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUBE. 

between  parent  and  child — we  should  rather  say,  does  not  oi 
itself  recognize  that  connection  at  all ;  so  much  ought  to  be 
frankly  conceded  to  those  who  disapprove  of  the  practice  of 
infant  baptism,  and  wiU  be  conceded  by  all  whose  object  is  to 
ascertain  the  truth  rather  than  contend  for  an  opinion. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  if  we  look,  not  to  the  form, 
but  to  the  substance,  which  ought  here,  as  in  other  things,  to 
be  chiefly  regarded,  we  perceive  an  essential  agreement — 
such  as  is  indeed  marked  by  the  apostle,  when  speaking  of 
those  who  have  been  buried  with  Christ  in  baptism,  he  rep- 
resents them  as  having  obtained  "the  circumcision  of  Christ  * 
So  far  from  being  less  indicative  of  a  change  of  nature  in  the 
proper  subjects  of  it,  circumcision  was  even  more  so;  in  a 
more  obvious  and  palpable  manner  it  bespoke  the  necessity 
of  a  deliverance  from  the  native  corruption  of  the  soul  in 
those  who  should  become  the  true  possessors  of  blessing. 
Hence  the  apostle  makes  use  of  the  earlier  rite  to  explain  the 
symbolical  import  of  the  later,  and  describes  the  spiritual 
change  indicated  and  required  by  it  as  "  a  putting-off  of  the 
body  of  the  sins  of  the  flesh  by  the  circumcision  of  Christ," 
and  "having  the  uncircumcision  of  the  flesh  quickened  to- 
gether with  Christ."  It  would  have  been  travelling  entirely 
in  the  wrong  direction,  to  use  such  language  for  purposes  of 
explanation  in  Christian  times,  if  the  ordinance  of  circum- 
cision had  not  shadowed  forth  this  spiritual  quickening  and 
purification  even  more  palpably  and  impressively  than  bap- 
tism itself;  and  shadowed  it  forth,  not  prospectively  alone 
for  future  times,  but  immediately  and  personally  for  the 
members  of  the  Old  Covenant.  For,  by  the  terms  of  the 
covenant,  these  were  ordained  to  be,  not  types  of  blessing 
only,  but  also  partakers  of  blessing.  The  good  contemplated 
in  the  covenant  was  to  have  its  present  commencement  in 
their  experience,  as  well  as  in  the  future  a  deeper  foundation 
and  a  more  enlarged  development  And  the  outward  put- 
ting away  of  the  filth  of  the  flesh  in  circumcision  could  never 
have  symbolized  a  corresponding  inward  purification  for  the 
members  of  the  New  Covenant,  if  it  had  not  first  done  this 
for  the  members  of  the  Old.  The  shadow  must  have  a  sub- 
stance in  the  one  case  as  well  as  in  the  other. 

Such  being  the  case  as  to  the  essential  agreement  between 
the  two  ordinances,  an  important  element  for  deciding  in 
regard  to  the  propriety  of  infant  baptism  may  still  be  derived 
from  the  practice  established  in  the  rite  of  circumcision. 
The  grand  principle  of  connecting  parent  and  child  together 

OoL  ii  11. 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      315 

for  the  attainment  of  spiritual  objects,  and  marking  the  con- 
nection by  an  impressive  signature,  was  there  most  distinctly 
and  broadly  sanctioned.  And  if  the  parental  bond  and  its 
attendant  obligations  be  not  weakened,  but  rather  elevated 
and  strengthened,  by  the  higher  revelations  of  the  Gospel,  it 
would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  liberty  at  least,  nay,  the  pro- 
priety and  right,  if  not  the  actual  obligation,  to  have  their 
children  brought  by  an  initiatory  ordinance  under  the  bond 
of  the  covenant,  did  not  belong  to  parents  under  the  Gospel. 
The  one  ordinance  no  more  than  the  other  insures  the  actual 
transmission  of  the  grace  necessary  to  effect  the  requisite 
change;  but  it  exhibits  that  grace — on  the  part  of  God 
pledges  it — and  takes  the  subject  of  the  ordinance  bound  to 
use  it  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  proper  end.  Baptism 
does  this  now,  as  circumcision  did  of  old;  and  if  it  was  done 
in  the  one  case  through  the  medium  of  the  parent  to  the 
child,  one  does  not  see  why  it  may  not  be  done  now,  unless 
positively  prohibited,  in  the  other.  But  since  this  is  matter 
of  inference  rather  than  of  positive  enactment,  those  who  do 
not  feel  warranted  to  make  such  an  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Old  Testament  ordinance  to  the  New,  should 
unquestionably  be  allowed  their  liberty  of  thought  and  action ; 
if  only,  in  the  vindication  of  that  liberty,  they  do  not  seek  to 
degrade  circumcision  to  a  mere  outward  and  political  dis- 
tinction, and  thereby  break  the  continuity  of  the  Church 
through  successive  dispensations.1 

1  It  is  not  necessary  to  do  more  than  notice  the  statements  of  Coleridge  re- 
garding circumcision  ( Aids  to  Reflection,  i.  p.  296),  in  which,  as  in  some  others 
on  purely  theological  subjects  in  his  writings,  one  is  even  more  struck  with 
the  unaccountable  ignoring  of  fact  displayed  in  the  deliverance  given,  than 
with  the  tone  of  assurance  in  which  it  is  announced.  "  Circumcision  was  no 

sacrament  at  all,  but  the  means  and  mark  of  national  distinction 

Nor  was  it  ever  pretended  that  any  grace  was  conferred  with  it,  or  that  the 
rite  was  significant  of  any  inward  or  spiritual  operation."  Delitzsch,  how- 
ever, so  far  coincides  with  this  view,  as  to  deny  (Genesis  Ausgelegt,  p.  281)  the 
sacramental  character  of  circumcision.  But  he  does  so  on  grounds  that,  in 
regard  to  circumcision,  will  not  stand  examination;  and,  in  regard  to  baptism, 
evidently  proceed  on  the  high  Lutheran  view  of  the  sacraments.  He  says, 
that  while  circumcision  had  a  moral  and  mystical  meaning,  and  was  intended 
ever  to  remind  the  subject  of  it  of  his  near  relation  to  Jehovah,  and  his  obli- 
gation to  walk  worthy  of  this,  still  it  was  "no  vehicle  of  heavenly  grace,  of 
divine  sanctifying  power,"  "in  itself  a  mere  sign  without  substance," — as  if 
it  were  ever  designed  to  be  by  itself!  or  as  if  baptism  with  water,  by  itself,  were 
any  thing  more  than  a  mere  sign  !  Circumcision  being  stamped  upon  Abra- 
ham and  his  seed  as  the  sign  of  the  covenant,  and  so  far  identified  with  the 
covenant,  in  the  appointment  of  God,  must  have  been  a  sign  on  God's  part 
as  well  as  theirs;  it  could  not  otherwise  have  been  the  sign  of  a  covenant,  or 
mutual  compact;  it  must,  therefore,  have  borne  respect  to  what  God  promised 
to  be  to  His  people,  not  less  than  what  His  people  were  to  be  to  Him.  This 
is  manifestly  what  the  apostle  means,  when  he  calls  it  a  seal  which  Abraham 
received,  a  pledge  from  God  of  the  ratification  of  the  covenant,  and  conse- 


816  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCBIPTUBE. 

3.  But  we  must  now  hasten  to  the  third  stage  of  Abraham's 
career,  which  presents  him  on  a  still  higher  moral  elevation 
than  he  has  yet  reached,  and  view  him  as  connected  with  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac.  Between  the  establishment  of  the  covenant 
by  the  rite  of  circumcision,  and  this  last  stage  of  development, 
there  were  not  wanting  occasions  fitted  to  bring  out  the  pre- 
eminently hoty  character  of  his  calling,  and  the  dependence 
on  his  maintaining  this  toward  God  of  what  God  should  be 
and  do  toward  him.  This  appears  in  the  order  he  received 
from  God  to  cast  Ishmael  out  of  his  house,  when  the  envious, 
mocking  spirit  of  the  vouth  too  clearly  showed  that  he  had  not 
the  heart  of  a  true  child  of  the  covenant,  and  would  not  sub- 
mit aright  to  the  arrangements  of  God  concerning  it  It  ap- 
Eears  also  in  the  free  and  familiar  fellowship  to  which  Abra- 
am  was  admitted  with  the  three  heavenly  visitants,  whom 
he  entertained  in  his  tent  on  the  plains  of  Mamre,  and  the 

quently  of  all  the  grace  that  covenant  promised.  It  had  otherwise  been  no 
privilege  to  be  circumcised;  since  to  be  bound  to  do  righteously,  without 
being  entitled  to  look  for  grace  corresponding,  is  simply  to  be  placed  under 
an  intolerable  yoke. — I  leave  this  latter  statement  unaltered,  notwithstanding 
that  Mr.  Litton  points  me  (Bampton  Lectures,  p.  311)  to  Acts  xv.  10,  Heb.  ii. 
15,  and  Gal.  iv.  24,  in  proof  that  the  apostles  did  actually  regard  the  elder  cov- 
enant as  an  intolerable  yoke;  for  it  seems  plain  to  me,  that  such  passages 
point  to  the  covenant  of  law  rather  than  the  covenant  of  promise,  with  which 
circumcision  in  its  original  appointment  and  proper  character  was  associated. 
I  have  much  pleasure,  however,  in  substituting  here,  for  what  was  given  in  a 
previous  edition,  the  following  remarks  of  Mr.  Litton,  regarding  the  connec- 
tion between  circumcision  and  baptism,  which  substantially  coincide  with 
what  has  been  stated:  "  In  a  looser  sense,  circumcision  may  be  considered  as 
a  sacrament.  For  baptism,  too,  is  a  symbolical  ordinance,  perpetually  remind- 
ing the  Christian  what  his  vocation  is.  Circumcision,  moreover,  was  to  the 
Jewish  infant  a  seal,  or  formal  confirmation,  of  the  promises  of  God,  first  made 
to  the  patriarch  Abraham,  and  then  to  his  seed;  just  as  baptism  now  seals  to 
us  the  higher  promises  of  the  evangelical  covenant."  Then,  after  noticing 
a  change  of  view  in  regard  to  the  place  held  by  circumcision  in  the  Old  Cove- 
nant, he  says:  "  The  (natural)  birth  of  the  Jew,  which  was  the  real  ground  of 
his  privileges,  answers  to  the  new  birth  of  the  Christian  in  its  inner  or  essential 
aspect;  while  circumcision,  the  rite  by  which  the  Jewish  infant  became  a  pub- 
licly acknowledged  member  of  the  theocracy,  corresponds  to  baptism,  or  the 
new  birth  in  its  external  aspect,  to  which  sacrament  the  same  function,  of  visi- 
bly incorporating  in  the  Church,  now  belongs."  It  is,  therefore,  not  in  re- 
spect to  the  soul's  inward  and  personal  state,  that  either  ordinance  can  properly 
be  called  initiatory  (for  in  that  respect  blessing  might  be  had  initially  without 
the  one  as  well  as  the  other),  but  in  respect  to  the  person's  recognized  connec- 
tion with  the  corporate  society  of  those  who  are  subjects  of  blessing.  This 
begins  now  with  baptism,  and  it  began  of  old  with  circumcision:  till  the  indi- 
vidual was  circumcised,  he  was  not  reckoned  as  belonging  to  that  society; 
and  if  passing  the  proper  time  for  the  ordinance  without  it,  he  was  to  be  held 
as  ipso  facto  cut  off.  Under  both  covenants  there  is  an  inward  and  an  out- 
ward bond  of  connection  with  the  peculiar  blessing:  the  inward  faith  in  God's 
word  of  promise  (of  old,  faith  in  God;  now  more  specifically,  faith  in  Christ); 
the  outward,  circumcision  formerly,  now  baptism.  Yet  the  two  in  neither 
case  should  be  viewed  as  altogether  apart,  but  the  one  should  rather  be  held 
as  the  formal  expression  and  seal  of  the  other. 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      317 

disclosure  that  was  made  to  him  of  the  divine  counsel  re- 
specting Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  expressly  on  the  ground  that 
the  Lord  "knew  he  would  command  his  children  and  his 
household  after  him  to  keep  the  way  of  the  Lord,  to  do  jus- 
tice and  judgment."  And  most  of  all  it  appears  in  the  plead- 
ing of  Abraham  for  the  preservation  of  the  cities  of  the  plain, 
— a  pleading  based  upon  the  principles  of  righteousness,  that 
the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  would  do  right,  and  would  not  de- 
stroy the  righteous  with  the  wicked, — and  a  pleading  that 
proved  in  vain  only  from  there  not  being  found  the  ten  right- 
eous persons  in  the  place  contemplated  in  the  patriarch's  last 
supposition.  So  that  the  awful  scene  of  desolation  which  the 
region  of  those  cities  afterwards  presented  on  the  very  bor- 
ders of  the  land  of  Canaan,  stood  perpetually  before  the  Jew- 
ish people,  not  only  as  a  monument  of  the  divine  indignation 
against  sin,  but  also  as  a  witness  that  the  father  of  their  nation 
would  have  sought  their  preservation  also  from  a  like  judg- 
ment only  on  the  principles  of  righteousness,  and  would  have 
even  ceased  to  plead  in  their  behalf,  if  righteousness  should 
sink  as  low  among  them  as  he  ultimately  supposed  it  might 
have  come  in  Sodom. 

But  the  topstone  of  Abraham's  history  as  the  spiritual 
head  of  a  seed  of  blessing,  is  only  reached  in  the  divine  com- 
mand to  offer  up  Isaac,  and  the  obedience  which  the  patriarch 
rendered  to  it.  "Take  now  thy  son,  thine  only  son  Isaac, 
whom  thou  lovest,  and  get  thee  into  the  land  of  Moriah ;  and 
offer  him  there  for  a  burnt-offering  upon  one  of  the  mountains, 
which  I  will  tell  thee  of."  That  Abraham  understood  this 
command  rightly,  when  he  supposed  it  to  mean  a  literal  offer- 
ing of  his  son  upon  the  altar,  and  not,  as  Hengstenberg  and 
Lange  have  contended,  a  simple  dedication  to  a  religious  life, 
needs  no  particular  proof.  Had  any  thing  but  a  literal  sur- 
render been  meant,  the  mention  of  a  burnt-offering  as  the 
character  in  which  Isaac  was  to  be  offered  to  God,  and  of  a 
mountain  in  Moriah  as  the  particular  spot  where  the  offering 
was  to  be  presented,  would  have  been  entirely  out  of  place. 
But  why  should  such  a  demand  have  been  made  of  Abra- 
ham ?  And  what  precisely  were  the  lessons  it  was  intended 
to  convey  to  his  posterity,  or  its  typical  bearing  on  future 
times  ? 

In  the  form  given  to  the  required  act,  special  emphasis  is 
laid  on  the  endeared  nature  of  the  object  demanded:  thine 
only  son,  and  the  son  whom  thou  lovest.  It  was,  therefore,  a 
trial  in  the  strongest  ^ense,  a  trial  of  Abraham's  faith,  whether 
it  was  capable  of  such  implicit  confidence  in  God,  such,  pro- 
found regard  to  rf  is  will,  an4  such  self-denial  in  His  service, 


318  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUKE. 

as  at  the  divine  bidding  to  give  up  the  best  and  dearest — 
what  in  the  circumstances  must  even  have  been  deaier  to  him 
than  his  own  life.  Not  that  God  really  intended  the  surren 
der  of  Isaac  to  death,  but  only  the  proof  of  such  a  surrender 
in  the  heart  of  His  servant ;  and  such  a  proof  could  only  have 
been  found  in  an  unconditional  command  to  sacrifice,  and  an 
unresisting  compliance  with  the  command  up  to  the  final  step 
in  the  process.  This,  however,  was  not  all.  In  the  command 
to  perform  such  a  sacrifice,  there  was  a  tempting  as  well  as  a 
trying  of  Abraham;  since  the  thing  required  at  his  hands 
Deemed  to  be  an  enacting  of  the  most  revolting  rite  of  hea- 
thenism ;  and  at  the  same  time  to  war  with  the  oracle  already 
given  concerning  Isaac,  "  In  Isaac  shall  thy  seed  be  called." 
According  to  this  word,  God's  purpose  to  bless  was  destined 
to  have  its  accomplishment  especially  and  peculiarly  through 
Isaac ;  so  that  to  slay  such  a  son  appeared  like  slaying  the 
very  word  of  God,  and  extinguishing  the  hope  of  the  world. 
And  yet,  in  heart  and  purpose  at  least,  it  must  be  done.  It 
was  no  freak  of  arbitrary  power  to  command  the  sacrifice; 
nor  was  it  done  merely  with  the  view  of  raising  the  patriarch 
to  a  kind  of  romantic  moral  elevation.  It  had  for  its  object 
the  outward  and  palpable  exhibition  of  the  great  truth,  that 
God's  method  of  working  in  the  covenant  of  grace  must  have 
its  counterpart  in  man's.  The  one  must  be  the  reflex  of  the 
other.  God,  in  blessing  Abraham,  triumphs  over  nature ;  and 
Abraham  triumphs  after  the  same  manner  in  proportion  as 
he  is  blessed.  He  receives  a  special  gift  from  the  grace  of 
God,  and  he  freely  surrenders  it  again  to  Him  who  gave  it. 
He  is  pre-eminently  honored  by  God's  word  of  promise,  and 
he  is  ready  in  turn  to  hazard  all  for  its  honor.  And  Isaac, 
the  child  of  promise— the  type  in  his  outward  history  of  all 
who  should  be  proper  subjects  or  channels  of  blessing — also 
must  concur  in  the  act:  on  the  altar  he  must  sanctify  him- 
self to  God,  as  a  sign  to  all  who  would  possess  the  higher  life 
of  grace,  how  it  implies  and  carries  along  with  it  a  devout 
surrender  of  the  natural  life  to  the  service  and  glory  of  Him 
who  has  redeemed  it. 

We  have  no  account  of  the  workings  of  Abraham's  mind, 
when  going  forth  to  the  performance  of  this  extraordinary 
act  of  devotedness  to  God ;  and  the  record  of  the  transaction 
is,  from  the  very  simplicity  with  which  it  narrates  the  facts 
of  the  case,  the  most  touching  and  impressive  in  Old  Testa- 
ment history.  But  we  are  informed  on  inspired  authority, 
that  the  principle  on  which  he  acted,  and  which  enabled  him 
— as  indeed  it  alone  could  enable  him — to  fulfil  such  a 
service,  was  faith:  "By  faith  Abraham,  when  he  was  tried, 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      319 

offered  up  Isaac :  and  he  that  received  the  promises  offered 
up  his  only  begotten  son,  of  whom  it  was  said,  That  in  Isaac 
shall  thy  seed  be  called:  accounting  that  God  was  able  to 
raise  him  up  even  from  the  dead;  from  whence  also  he  re- 
ceived him  in  a  figure." 1  His  noblest  act  of  obedience  was 
nothing  more  than  the  highest  exercise  and  triumph  of  his 
faith.  It  was  this  which  removed  the  mountains  that  stood 
before  him,  and  hewed  out  a  path  for  him  to  walk  in.  Grasp- 
ing with  firm  hand  that  word  of  promise  which  assured  him 
of  a  numerous  seed  by  the  line  of  Isaac,  and  taught  by  past 
experience  to  trust  the  faithfulness  of  Him  who  gave  it  even 
in  the  face  of  natural  impossibilities,  his  faith  enabled  him  to 
see  light  where  all  had  otherwise  been  darkness — to  hope 
while  in  the  very  act  of  destroying  the  great  object  of  his 
hope.  I  know — so  he  must  have  argued  with  himself — 
that  the  word  of  God,  which  commands  this  sacrifice,  is 
faithfulness  and  truth;  and  though  to  stretch  forth  my  hand 
against  this  child  of  promise  is  apparently  destructive  to  my 
hopes,  yet  I  may  safely  risk  it,  since  He  commands  it  from 
whom  the  gift  and  the  promise  were  alike  received.  It  is  as 
easy  for  the  Almighty  arm  to  give  me  back  my  son  from  the 
domain  of  death,  as  it  was  at  first  to  bring  him  forth  out  of 
the  dead  womb  of  Sarah ;  and  what  He  can  do,  His  declared 
purpose  makes  me  sure  that  He  ivill,  and  even  must  do. — 
Thus  nature,  even  in  its  best  and  strongest  feelings,  was  over- 
come, and  the  sublimest  heights  of  holiness  were  reached, 
simply  because  faith  had  struck  its  roots  so  deeply  within, 
and  had  so  closely  united  the  soul  of  the  patriarch  to  the  will 
and  perfections  of  Jehovah. 

This  high  surrender  of  the  human  to  the  divine,  and  holy 
self-consecration  to  the  will  and  service  of  God,  was  beyond 
all  doubt,  like  the  other  things  recorded  in  Abraham's  life,  of 
the  nature  of  a  revelation.  It  was  not  intended  to  terminate 
in  the  patriarch  and  his  son,  but  in  them,  as  the  sacred  roots 
of  the  covenant  people,  to  show  in  outward  and  corporeal 
representation  what  in  spirit  ought  to  be  perpetually  re- 
peating itself  in  their  individual  and  collective  history.  It 
proclaimed  to  them  through  all  their  generations,  that  the 
covenant  required  of  its  members  lives  of  unshrinking  and 
devoted  application  to  the  service  of  God — yielding  to  no 
weak  misgivings  or  corrupt  solicitations  of  the  flesh — stag- 
gering at  no  difficulties  presented  by  the  world ;  and  also 
that  it  rendered  such  a  course  possible  by  the  ground  and 
scope  it  afforded  for  the  exercise  of  faith  in  me  sustain- 

i  Heb.  xi.  17-19. 


320  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

ing  grace  and  might  of  Jehovah.  And  undoubtedly,  as  the 
human  here  was  the  reflex  of  the  divine,  whence  it  drew  its 
source  and  reason,  so  inversely,  and  as  regards  the  ulterior 
objects  of  the  covenant,  the  divine  might  justly  be  regarded 
as  imaged  in  the  human.  An  organic  union  between  the 
two  was  indispensable  to  the  effectual  accomplishment  of  the 
promised  good ;  and  the  seed  in  which  the  blessing  of  Heaven 
was  to  concentrate,  and  from  which  it  was  to  flow  throughout 
the  families  of  the  earth,  must  on  the  one  side  be  as  really 
the  Son  of  God,  as  on  the  other  he  was  to  be  the  offspring  of 
Abraham.  Since,  therefore,  the  two  lines  were  ultimately 
to  meet  in  one,  and  that  one,  by  the  joint  operation  of  the 
divine  and  human,  was  once  for  all  to  make  good  the  pro- 
vision of  blessing  promised  in  the  covenant,  it  was  fitting, 
and  it  may  reasonably  be  supposed,  was  one  end  of  the  trans- 
action, that  they  should  be  seen  from  the  first  to  coalesce  in 
principle ;  that  the  surrender  Abraham  made  of  his  son,  for 
the  world's  good,  in  the  line  after  the  flesh,  and  the  surrender 
willingly  made  by  that  son  himself  at  the  altar  of  God,  was 
destined  to  foreshadow  in  the  other  and  higher  line  the  won- 
derful gift  of  God  in  yielding  up  His  Son,  and  the  free-will  of- 
fering and  consecration  of  the  Son  Himself  to  bring  in  eternal 
life  for  the  lost  Here,  too,  as  the  things  done  were  in  their 
nature  unspeakably  higher  than  in  the  other,  so  were  they 
thoroughly  and  intensely  real  in  their  character.  The  rep- 
resentative in  the  Old  becomes  the  actual  in  the  New;  and 
the  sacrifice  performed  there  merely  in  the  spirit,  passes  here 
into  that  one  full  and  complete  atonement,  which  forever 
perfects  them  that  are  sanctified.1 

In  the  preparatory  and  typical  line,  however,  Abraham's 
conduct  on  this  occasion  was  the  perfect  exemplar  which  all 

1  Presented  as  it  is  above,  the  typical  relationship  is  both  quite  natural 
and  easy  of  apprehension,  if  only  one  keeps  distinctly  in  view  the  necessary 
connection  between  the  divine  and  the  human  for  accomplishing  the  ends  of 
the  covenant,  — a  connection  influential  and  co-operative  as  regards  the  im- 
mediate ends,  organic  and  personal  as  regards  the  ultimate.  That  the  action 
was,  as  Warburton  represents,  a  scenical  representation  of  the  death  and  resur- 
rection of  Christ,  appointed  expressly  to  satisfy  the  mind  of  Abraham,  who 
longed  to  see  Christ's  day,  is  to  present  it  in  a  fanciful  and  arbitrary  light; 
and  what  is  actually  recorded  requires  to  be  supplemented  by  much  that  is 
not.  Nor  do  we  need  to  lay  any  stress  on  the  precise  locality  where  the  offer- 
ing was  appointed  to  be  made.  It  must  always  remain  somewhat  doubtful 
whether  the  "land  of  Moriah"  was  the  same  with  "Mount  Moriah,  "  on 
which  the  temple  was  afterwards  built,  as  the  one,  indeed,  is  evidently  a 
more  general  designation  than  the  other;  and,  at  all  events,  it  was  not  on 
that  mount  that  the  one  great  sacrifice  of  Christ  was  offered.  And  the  minor 
circumstances,  excepting  in  so  far  as  they  indicate  the  implicit  obedience  of 
the  father  and  the  filial  submission  and  devotedness  of  the  son,  should  b« 
considered  as  of  no  moment* 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      321 

should  have  aspired  to  copy.  He  stood  now  on  the  highest 
elevation  of  the  righteousness  of  faith;  and  to  show  the  weight 
God  attached  to  that  righteousness,  and  how  inseparably  it 
was  to  be  bound  up  with  the  provisions  of  the  covenant,  the 
Lord  consummated  the  transaction  by  a  new  ratification  of 
the  covenant.  After  the  angel  of  Jehovah  had  stayed  the 
hand  of  Abraham  from  slaying  Isaac,  and  provided  the  ram 
for  a  burnt-offering,  he  again  appeared  and  spake  to  Abra- 
ham, "By  myself  have  I  sworn,  saith  the  Lord;  for  because 
thou  hast  done  this  thing,  and  hast  not  withheld  thy  son, 
thine  only  son ;  that  in  blessing  I  will  bless  thee,  and  in  multi- 
plying I  will  multiply  thy  seed  as  the  stars  of  heaven,  and  as 
the  sand  which  is  upon  the  sea-shore ;  and  thy  seed  shall  pos- 
sess the  gate  of  his  enemies:  and  in  thy  seed  shall  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  be  blessed;  because  thou  hast  obeyed 
my  voice."1  The  things  promised,  it  will  be  observed,  are 
precisely  the  things  which  God  had  already  of  His  own  good- 
ness engaged  in  covenant  to  bestow  upon  Abraham :  these, 
indeed,  to  their  largest  extent,  but  still  no  more,  no  other 
than  these, — a  seed  numerous  as  the  sand  upon  the  sea-shore 
or  the  stars  of  heaven,  shielded  from  the  malice  of  enemies, 
itself  blessed,  and  destined  to  be  the  channel  of  blessing  to 
all  nations.  But  it  is  also  to  be  observed,  that  while  the 
same  promises  of  good  are  renewed,  they  are  now  connected 
with  Abraham's  surrender  to  the  will  of  God,  and  are  given 
as  the  reward  of  his  obedience.  To  render  this  more  clear 
and  express,  it  is  announced,  both  at  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  the  address :  "  Because  thou  hast  done  this  .... 
because  thou  hast  obeyed  my  voice."  And  even  afterwards, 
when  the  covenant  was  established  with  Isaac,  an  explicit 
reference  is  made  to  the  same  thing.  The  Lord  said,  He  would 
perform  the  oath  He  had  sworn  to  Abraham,  "because  he 
obeyed  my  voice,  and  kept  my  charge,  my  commandments, 
my  statutes,  and  my  laws.  a  What  could  have  more  impress- 
ively exhibited  the  truth,  that  though  the  covenant,  with  all 
its  blessings,  was  of  grace  on  the  part  of  God,  and  to  be  ap- 
propriated by  faith  on  the  part  of  men,  yet  the  good  promised 
could  not  be  actually  conferred  by  Him,  unless  the  faith  should 
approve  itself  by  deeds  of  righteousness !  Their  faith  would 
otherwise  be  accounted  dead,  the  mere  semblance  of  what  it 
should  be.  And  as  if  to  bind  the  two  more  solemnly  and  con- 
spicuously together,  the  Lord  takes  this  occasion  to  superadd 
His  oath  to  the  covenant, — not  to  render  the  word  of  promise 
more  sure  in  itself,  but  to  make  it  more  palpably  sure  to  the 

Gen.  xxii.  16-18.  »  Gen.  xxvi  5. 

VOL.  I. — 21 


322  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUBE. 

heirs  of  promise,  and  to  deepen  in  them  the  impression,  that 
nothing  should  fail  of  all  that  had  been  spoken,  if  only  their 
faith  and  obedience  should  accord  with  that  now  exhibited  I 

II.  We  must  leave  to  the  reflection  of  our  readers  the  ap- 
plication of  this  to  Christian  times  and  relations,  which  is 
indeed  so  obvious  as  to  need  no  particular  explanation ;  and 
we  proceed  to  take  a  rapid  glance  at  the  leading  features  of 
the  other  branch  of  the  subject — that  which  concerns  Jacob 
and  the  twelve  patriarchs.  This  forms  the  continuation  of 
what  took  place  in  the  lives  of  Abraham  and  Isaac,  and  a 
continuation  not  only  embodying  the  same  great  principles, 
but  also  carrying  them  forward  with  more  special  adaptation 
to  the  prospective  condition  of  the  Israelites  as  a  people. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  patriarchal  period,  the  covenant, 
even  in  its  more  specific  line  of  operations,  began  to  widen 
and  expand,  to  rise  more  from  the  particular  to  the  general, 
to  embrace  a  family  circle,  and  that  circle  the  commencement 
of  a  future  nation.  And  the  dealings  of  God  were  all  di- 
rected to  the  one  great  end  of  showing,  that  while  this  people 
should  stand  alike  outwardly  related  to  the  covenant,  yet  their 
real  connection  with  its  promises,  and  their  actual  possession 
of  its  blessings,  should  infallibly  turn  upon  their  being  fol- 
lowers in  faith  and  holiness  of  the  first  fathers  of  their  race. 

Unfortunately,  the  later  part  of  Isaac's  life  did  not  alto- 
gether fulfil  the  promise  of  the  earlier.  Knowing  little  of 
the  trials  of  faith,  he  did  not  reach  high  in  his  attainments. 
And  in  the  more  advanced  stage  of  his  history  he  fell  into  a 
state  of  general  feebleness  and  decay,  in  wnich  the  moral 
but  too  closely  corresponded  with  the  bodily  decline.  Not- 
withstanding the  very  singular  and  marked  exemplification 
that  had  been  given  in  his  own  case  of  the  pre-eminent  respect 
had  in  the  covenant  to  something  higher  than  nature,  he  failed 
so  much  in  discernment,  that  he  was  disposed  only  to  make 
account  of  the  natural  element  in  judging  of  the  respective 
states  and  fortunes  of  his  sons.  To  the  neglect  of  a  divine 
oracle  going  before,  and  the  neglect  also  of  the  plainest  indi- 
cations afforded  by  the  subsequent  behavior  of  the  sons  them- 
selves, he  resolved  to  give  the  more  distinctive  blessing  of 
the  covenant  to  Esau,  in  preference  to  Jacob,  and  so  to  make 
him  the  more  peculiar  type  and  representative  of  the  cove- 
nant. In  this,  however,  he  was  thwarted  by  the  overruling 
providence  of  God — not  indeed  without  sin  on  the  part  of 
those  who  were  the  immediate  agents  in  accomplishing  it, 
but  yet  so  as  to  bring  out  more  clearly  and  impressively  the 
fact,  that  mere  natural  descent  and  priority  of  oirth  was  not 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      323 

here  the  principal,  but  only  the  secondary  thing,  and  that 
higher  and  more  important*  than  anv  natural  advantage  was 
the  grace  of  God  manifesting  itself  in  the  faith  and  holiness 
of  men.  Jacob,  therefore,  though  the  youngest  by  birth,  yet 
from  the  first  the  child  of  faith,  of  spiritual  desire,  of  heart- 
felt longings  <*fter  the  things  of  God,  ultimately  the  man  of 
deep  discernment,  ripened  experience,  prophetic  insight,  wres- 
tling and  victorious  energy  in  the  divine  life — he  must  stand 
first  in  the  purpose  of  Heaven,  and  exhibit  in  his  personal 
career  a  living  representation  of  the  covenant,  as  to  what  it 
properly  is  and  realty  requires.  Nay,  opportunity  was  taken 
from  his  case,  as  the  immediate  founder  of  the  Israelitish  na- 
tion, to  begin  the  covenant  history  anew;  and  starting,  as  it 
were,  from  nothing  in  his  natural  position  and  circumstances, 
it  was  shown  how  God,  by  His  supernatural  grace  and  suffi- 
ciency, could  vanquish  the  difficulties  in  the  way,  and  more 
than  compensate  for  the  loss  of  nature's  advantages.  In  ref- 
erence partly  to  this  instructive  portion  of  Jacob's  history, 
and  to  renew  upon  their  minds  the  lesson  it  was  designed  to 
teach,  the  children  of  Israel  were  appointed  to  go  to  the  priest 
in  after  times  with  their  basket  of  first-fruits  in  their  hand, 
and  the  confession  in  their  mouth,  A  Syrian  ready  to  perish 
was  my  father.1  It  was  clear,  even  as  noonday,  that  all 
Jacob  had  to  distinguish  him  outwardly  from  others,  the  sole 
foundation  and  spring  of  his  greatness,  was  the  promise  of 
God  in  the  covenant,  received  by  him  in  humble  faith,  and 
taken  as  the  ground  of  prayerful  and  holy  striving.  As  the 
head  of  the  covenant  people,  he  was  not  less  really,  though 
by  a  different  mode  of  operation,  the  child  of  divine  grace 
and  power,  than  his  father  Isaac.  And  as  his  whole  life,  in 
its  better  aspects,  was  a  lesson  to  his  posterity  respecting  the 
superiority  of  the  spiritual  to  the  merely  natural  element  in 
things  pertaining  to  the  covenant  of  God ;  so,  when  his  his- 
tory drew  toward  its  close,  there  were  lessons  of  a  more  spe- 
cial kind,  and  in  the  same  direction,  pressed  with  singular 
force  and  emphasis  upon  the  family. 

It  was  a  time  when  such  were  peculiarly  needed.  The 
covenant  was  now  to  assume  more  of  a  communal  aspect.  It 
was  to  have  a  national  membership  and  representation,  as  the 
more  immediate  designs  which  God  sought  to  accomplish  by 
means  of  it  could  not  be  otherwise  effected.  Jacob  was  the 
last  separate  impersonation  of  its  spirit  and  character.  His 
family,  in  their  collective  capacity,  were  henceforth  to  take 
this  position.  But  they  had  first  to  learn  that  they  could 

1  Dent.  rxvi.  5. 


824  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

take  it  only  if  their  natural  relation  to  the  covenant  was  made 
the  means  of  forming  them  to  its  spiritual  characteristics,  and 
fitting  them  for  the  fulfilment  01  its  righteous  ends.  They 
must  even  learn  that  their  individual  relation  to  the  cove- 
nant in  these  respects  should  determine  their  relative  place 
in  the  administration  of  its  affairs  and  interests.  And  for 
this  end,  Reuben,  the  first-born,  is  made  to  lose  his  natural 
pre-eminence,  because,  like  Esau,  he  presumed  upon  his  nat- 
ural position,  and  in  the  lawless  impetuosity  of  nature  broke 
through  the  restraints  of  filial  piety.  Judah,  on  the  other 
hand,  obtains  one  of  the  prerogatives  Reuben  had  lost — Ju- 
dah, who  became  so  distinguished  for  that  filial  piety  as  to 
hazard  his  own  life  for  the  sake  of  his  father.  Simeon  and 
Levi,  in  like  manner,  are  all  but  excluded  from  the  blessings 
of  the  covenant  on  account  of  their  unrighteous  and  cruel 
behavior:  a  curse  is  solemnly  pronounced  upon  their  sin,  and 
a  mark  of  inferiority  stamped  upon  their  condition;  while, 
again,  at  a  later  period,  and  for  the  purpose  still  of  showing 
how  the  spiritual  was  to  rule  the  natural,  rather  than  the  nat- 
ural the  spiritual,  the  curse  in  the  case  of  Levi  was  turned 
into  a  blessing.  The  tribe  was  indeed,  according  to  the  word 
of  Jacob,  scattered  in  Israel,  and  was  thereby  rendered  polit- 
ically weak ;  but  the  more  immediate  reason  of  the  scattering 
was  the  zeal  and  devotedness  which  the  members  of  that 
tribe  had  exhibited  in  the  wilderness,  on  account  of  which 
they  were  dispersed  as  lights  among  Israel,  bearing  on  them 
the  more  peculiar  and  sacred  distinction  of  the  covenant. 
Most  strikingly,  however,  does  the  truth  break  forth  in  con- 
nection with  Joseph,  who  in  the  earlier  history  of  the  family 
was  the  only  proper  representative  of  the  covenant.  He  was 
the  one  child  of  God  in  the  family,  though,  with  a  single  ex- 
ception, the  least  and  youngest  of  its  members.  God  there- 
fore, after  allowing  the  contrast  between  him  and  the  rest  to 
be  sharply  exhibited,  ordered  His  providence  so  as  to  make 
him  pre-eminently  the  heir  of  blessing.  The  faith  and  piety 
of  the  youth  draw  upon  him  the  protection  and  loving-kind- 
ness of  Heaven  wherever  he  goes,  and  throw  a  charm  around 
every  thing  he  does.  At  length  he  rises  to  the  highest  posi- 
tion of  honor  and  influence — blessed  most  remarkably  him- 
self, and  on  the  largest  scale  made  a  blessing  to  others — the 
noblest  and  most  conspicuous  personal  embodiment  of  the 
nature  of  the  covenant,  as  first  rooting  itself  in  the  princi- 
ples of  a  spiritual  lite,  and  then  diffusing  itself  in  healthful 
and  blessed  energy  on  all  around.  At  the  same  time,  and  as 
a  foil  to  set  off  more  brightly  the  better  side  of  the  truth  rep- 
resented in  him,  while  he  was  thus  seen  riding  upon  the  high 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      826 

places  of  the  earth,  his  unsanctified  brethren  appear  famish- 
ing for  want;  the  promised  blessing  of  the  covenant  has 
almost  dried  up  in  their  experience,  because  they  possessed 
so  little  of  the  true  character  of  children  of  the  covenant.  And 
when  the  needful  relief  comes,  they  have  to  be  indebted  for 
it  to  the  hand  of  him  in  whom  that  character  is  most  lumi- 
nously displayed.  Nay,  in  the  very  mode  of  getting  it,  they 
are  conducted  through  a  train  of  humiliating  and  soul-stirring 
providences,  tending  to  force  on  them  the  conviction  that  they 
were  in  the  hands  of  an  angry  God,  and  to  bring  them  to  re- 
pentance of  sin  and  amendment  of  life.  So  that,  by  the  time 
they  are  raised  to  a  position  of  honor  and  comfort,  and  settled 
as  covenant  patriarchs  in  Egypt,  they  present  the  appearance 
of  men  chastened,  subdued,  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  God, 
fitted  each  to  take  his  place  among  the  heads  of  the  future 
covenant  people;  while  the  double  portion,  which  Reuben 
lost  by  his  iniquity,  descends  on  him  who  was,  under  God, 
the  instrument  of  accomplishing  so  much  good  for  them  and 
for  others. 

And  here,  again,  we  can  not  but  notice  that  when  the 
chosen  family  were  in  the  process  of  assuming  the  rudimen- 
tary form  of  that  people  through  whom  salvation  and  bless- 
ing were  to  come  to  other  kindreds  of  the  earth,  the  beginning 
was  rendered  prophetic,  of  the  end;  the  operations  both  of 
the  evil  and  the  good  in  the  infancy  of  the  nation,  were  made 
to  image  the  prospective  manifestation  that  was  to  be  given 
of  them  when  the  things  of  the  divine  kingdom  should  rise 
to  their  destined  maturity.  Especially  in  the  history  of  Jo- 
seph, the  representative  of  the  covenant  in  its  earlier  stage, 
was  there  given  a  wonderful  similitude  of  Him  in  whom  its 
powers  and  blessings  were  to  be  concentrated  in  their  entire 
fulness,  and  who  was  therefore  in  all  things  to  obtain  the 
pre-eminence  among  His  brethren.  Like  Joseph,  the  Son  of 
Mary,  though  born  among  brethren  after  the  flesh,  was  treat- 
ed as  an  alien ;  envied  and  persecuted  even  from  His  infancy, 
and  obliged  to  find  a  temporary  refuge  in  the  very  land  that 
shielded  Joseph  from  the  fury  of  his  kindred.  His  supernat- 
ural and  unblemished  righteousness  continually  provoked  the 
malice  of  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time  received  the  most 
anequi vocal  tokens  of  the  divine  favor  and  blessing.  It  was 
that  righteousness,  exhibited  amid  the  greatest  trials  and 
indignities,  in  the  deepest  debasement,  and  in  worse  than 
prison-house  affliction,  which  procured  His  elevation  to  the 
right  hand  of  power  and  glory,  from  which  He  was  thence- 
forth to  dispense  the  means  of  salvation  to  the  world.  In 
the  dispensation,  too,  of  these  blessings,  it  was  the  hardened 


32o  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

and  cruel  enmity  of  His  immediate  kindred  which  opened 
the  door  of  grace  and  blessing  to  the  heathen ;  and  the  sold, 
hated,  and  crucified  One  becomes  a  Prince  and  Saviour  to  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  while  His  famishing  brethren  reap  in 
bitterness  of  soul  the  fruit  of  their  inexcusable  hatred  and 
malice.  Nor  is  there  a  door  of  escape  to  be  found  for  them 
until  they  come  to  acknowledge,  in  contrition  of  heart,  that 
they  are  verily  guilty  concerning  their  brother.  Then,  how- 
ever, looking  unto  Him  whom  they  have  pierced,  and  owning 
Him  as,  by  God's  appointment,  the  one  channel  of  life  and 
blessing,  their  hatred  shall  be  repaid  with  love,  and  they  shall 
be  admitted  to  share  in  the  inexhaustible  fulness  that  is  treas- 
ured up  in  Christ. 

What  a  succession,  then,  of  lessons  for  the  children  of  the 
covenant  in  regard  to  what  constituted  their  greatest  danger 
— lessons  stretching  through  four  generations — ever  varying 
in  their  precise  form,  yet  always  bearing  most  directly  and 
impressively  upon  the  same  point — writing  out  on  the  very 
foundations  of  their  history,  and  emblazoning  on  the  banner 
of  their  covenant,  the  important  truth,  that  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment was  ever  to  be  held  the  thing  of  first  and  most  essential 
moment,  and  that  the  natural  was  only  to  be  regarded  as  the 
channel  through  which  the  other  was  chiefly  to  come,  and  the 
safeguard  by  which  it  was  to  be  fenced  and  kept !  From  the 
first  the  call  of  God  made  itself  known  as  no  merely  outward 
distinction ;  and  the  covenant  that  grew  out  of  it,  instead  of 
being  but  a  formal  bond  of  interconnection  between  its  mem- 
bers and  God,  was  framed  especially  to  meet  the  spiritual 
evil  in  the  world,  and  required  as  an  indispensable  condition, 
a  sanctified  heart  in  all  who  were  to  experience  its  blessings, 
and  to  work  out  its  beneficent  results.  How,  indeed,  could  it 
be  otherwise?  How  could  the  spiritual  Jehovah,  who  has, 
from  the  first  creation  of  man  upon  the  earth,  been  ever  mani- 
festing Himself  as  the  Holy  One,  and  directing  His  adminis- 
tration so  as  to  promote  the  ends  of  righteousness,  enter 
into  a  covenant  of  life  and  blessing  on  any  other  principle  ? 
It  is  impossible — as  impossible  as  it  is  for  the  unchangea- 
ble God  to  act  contrary  to  His  nature— that  the  covenant  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob — the  covenant  of  grace  and  bless- 
ing, which  embraces  in  its  bosom  Christ  Himself  and  the 
benefits  of  His  eternal  redemption — could  ever  have  contem- 
plated as  its  real  members  any  but  spiritual  and  righteous 
persons.  And  the  whole  tenor  and  current  of  the  divine 
dealings  in  establishing  the  covenant  seem  to  have  been 
alike  designed  and  calculated  to  shut  up  every  thoughtful 
mind  to  the  conclusion,  that  none  but  such  could  either  ful- 


THE  SUBJECTS  AND  CHANNELS  OF  BLESSING.      327 

fil  its  higher  purposes,  or  have  an  interest  in  its  more  essen- 
tial provisions. 

What  thus  appears  to  be  taught  in  the  historical  revela- 
tions of  God  connected  with  the  establishment  of  the  covenant, 
is  also  perpetually  re-echoed  in  the  later  communications  by 
His  prophets.  Their  great  aim,  in  the  monitory  part  of  their 
writings,  is  to  bring  home  to  men's  minds  the  conviction 
that  the  covenant  had  pre-eminently  in  view  moral  ends,  and 
that  in  so  far  as  the  people  degenerated  from  these,  they 
failed  in  respect  to  the  main  design  of  their  calling.  Let  us 
point,  in  proof  of  this,  merely  to  the  last  of  the  prophets,  that 
we  may  see  how  the  closing  witness  of  the  old  covenant 
coincides  with  the  testimony  delivered  at  the  beginning.  In 
the  second  chapter  of  his  writings,  the  prophet  Malachi, 
addressing  himself  to  the  corruptions  of  the  time,  as  appear- 
ing first  in  the  priesthood.,  and  then  among  the  people  gen- 
erally, charges  ooth  parties  expressly  with  a  breach  of  cove- 
nant, and  a  subversion  of  the  ends  for  which  it  was  established. 
In  regard  to  the  priests,  he  points  to  their  ancestral  holiness 
in  the  personified  tribe  of  Levi,  and  says,  "  My  covenant  was 
with  him  of  life  and  peace ;  and  I  gave  them  to  him  for  the 
fear  wherewith  he  feared  me,  and  was  afraid  before  my  name. 
The  law  of  truth  was  in  his  mouth,  and  iniquity  was  not 
found  in  his  lips :  he  walked  with  me  in  peace  and  equity, 
and  did  turn  many  away  from  iniquity.  .  .  .  But  ye  are 
departed  out  of  the  way;  ye  have  caused  many  to  stumble 
at  the  law ;  ye  have  corrupted  the  covenant  of  Levi,  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts.  Therefore  have  I  also  made  you  contemptible 
and  base  before  all  the  people,  according  as  ye  have  not  kept 
my  ways,  but  have  been  partial  in  the  law."  In  a  word,  the 
covenant,  in  this  particular  branch  of  it,  had  been  made  ex- 
pressly on  moral  grounds  and  for  moral  ends;  and  in  prac- 
tically losing  sight  of  these,  the  priests  of  that  time  had  made 
void  the  covenant,  even  though  externally  complying  with 
its  appointments,  and  were  consequently  visited  with  chas- 
tisement instead  of  blessing.  Then,  in  regard  to  the  people, 
a  reproof  is  first  of  all  administered  on  account  of  the  unfaith- 
fulness, which  had  become  comparatively  common,  in  putting 
away  their  Israelitish  wives,  and  taking  outlandish  women 
in  their  stead — "the  daughters  of  a  strange  god."  This  the 
prophet  calls  "  profaning  the  covenant  of  their  fathers."  And 
then  pointing  in  this  case,  as  in  the  former,  to  the  original 
design  and  purport  of  their  covenant  calling,  he  asks,  in  a 
question  which  has  been  entirely  misunderstood,  from  not 
being  viewed  in  relation  to  the  precise  object  of  the  prophet, 
"  And  did  not  He  make  one  ?  Yet  had  He  the  residue  of  the 


328  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Spirit.  And  wherefore  one  ?  That  He  might  seek  a  godly 
seed.  Therefore  take  heed  to  your  spirit,  and  let  none  deal 
treacherously  against  the  wife  of  his  youth."  The  one,  which 
God  made,  is  not  Adam,  nor  Abraham,  to  either  of  whom 
commentators  usually  refer  it,  though  the  case  of  neither  of 
them  properly  suits  the  point  more  immediately  in  question. 
The  oneness  referred  to  is  that  distinctive  species  of  it  on 
which  the  whole  section  proceeds  as  its  basis — Israel's  one- 
ness as  a  family.  God  had  chosen  them — them  alone  of  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth — to  be  His  peculiar  treasure.  If  He 
had  pleased,  He  might  have  chosen  more ;  the  residue  of  the 
Spirit  was  still  with  Him,  by  no  means  exhausted  by  that  single 
effort.  He  could  have  either  left  them  like  others,  or  chosen 
others  besides  them.  But  He  did  not;  He  made  one,  one 
alone,  to  be  peculiarly  His  own,  setting  it  apart  from  the 
rest.  And  wherefore  that  one  ?  Simply  that  He  might  have 
a  godly  seed ;  that  they  might  be  an  holy  people,  and  trans- 
mit the  true  fear  of  God  from  generation  to  generation.  How 
base,  then,  how  utterly  subversive  of  God's  purposes  concern- 
ing them,  to  act  as  if  no  such  separation  had  taken  place, — 
to  put  away  their  proper  wives,  and  by  heathenish  alliances 
bring  into  the  bosom  of  their  families  the  very  defilement 
and  corruption  against  which  God  had  especially  called  them 
to  contend !  Such  was  the  prophet's  understanding  of  the 
covenant  made  with  the  fathers  of  the  Israelitish  people; 
and  no  other  view  of  it,  we  venture  to  say,  would  ever  have 
prevailed,  if  its  nature  had  been  sought  primarily  in  those 
fundamental  records  which  describe  the  procedure  of  God 
in  bringing  it  originally  into  existence. 


SECTION  SIXTH. 

THE   INHERITANCE   DESTINED   FOR   THE   HEIRS   OP   BLESSING. 

The  covenant  made  with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  was 
connected  not  only  with  a  seed  of  blessing,  but  also  with  an 
inheritance  of  blessing  destined  for  their  possession.  And  in 
order  to  get  a  correct  view  both  of  the  immediate  and  of  the 
ultimate  bearing  of  this  part  of  the  covenant  promise,  it  is  not 
less  necessary  than  in  the  other  case,  to  consider  the  specific 
object  proposed  in  its  relation  to  the  entire  scheme  of  God, 
and  especially  to  bear  in  mind  that  it  forms  part  of  a  series 
of  arrangements  in  which  the  particular  or  the  individual  was 
selected  with  a  view  to  the  general,  the  universal.  In  respect 
to  the  good  to  be  inherited,  as  well  as  in  respect  to  the  persons 
who  might  be  called  to  inherit  it,  the  end  proposed  on  the 
part  of  God  was  from  the  first  of  the  most  comprehensive 
nature ;  and  if  for  a  time  there  was  an  immediate  narrowing 
of  the  field  of  promise,  it  could  be  only  for  the  sake  of  an  ulti- 
mate expansion.  To  see  more  distinctly  the  truth  of  this,  it 
may  be  proper  to  take  a  brief  retrospect  of  the  past. 

From  the  outset,  the  earth,  in  its  entire  extent  and  compass, 
was  given  for  the  domain  and  the  heritage  of  man.  He  was 
placed  in  paradise  as  his  proper  home.  There  he  had  the 
throne  of  his  kingdom,  but  not  that  he  might  be  pent  up 
within  that  narrow  region ;  rather  that  he  might  from  that,  as 
the  seat  of  his  empire  and  the  centre  of  his  operations,  go  forth 
upon  the  world  around,  and  bring  it  under  his  sway.  His 
calling  was  to  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue 
it;  so  that  it  might  become  to  its  utmost  bounds  an  extended 
and  peopled  paradise.  But  when  the  fall  entered,  though  the 
calling  was  not  withdrawn,  nor  the  possession  finally  lost,  yet 
man's  relative  position  was  changed.  He  had  now,  not  to 
work  from  paradise  as  a  rightful  king  and  lord,  but  from  the 
blighted  outfield  of  nature's  barrenness  to  work  as  a  servant, 
in  the  hope  of  ultimately  reaching  a  new  and  better  paradise 
than  he  had  lost.  The  first  promise  of  grace,  and  the  original 
symbols  of  worship,  viewed  in  connection  with  the  facts  of 


830  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTU11E. 

history,  out  of  which  they  grew,  presented  him  with  the  pros- 
pect of  an  ultimate  recovery  from  the  evils  of  sin  and  death, 
and  put  him  in  the  position  of  an  expectant  through  faith  in 
God,  and  toil  and  suffering  in  the  flesh,  of  good  things  yet  to 
come.  The  precise  hope  he  cherished  respecting  these  good 
things,  or  the  inheritance  he  actually  looked  for,  would  at 
first  naturally  take  shape  in  his  imagination  from  what  he  had 
lost  He  would  fancy,  that  though  he  must  bear  the  deserved 
doom  for  his  transgression,  and  return  again  to  dust,  yet  the 
time  would  come  when,  according  to  the  revealed  mercy  and 
loving-kindness  of  God,  the  triumph  of  the  adversary  would 
be  reversed,  the  dust  of  death  would  be  again  quickened  into 
life,  and  the  paradise  of  delight  be  occupied  anew,  with  better 
hopes  of  continuance,  and  with  enlarged  dimensions  suited  to 
its  destined  possessors.  He  could  scarcely  have  expected  more 
with  the  scanty  materials  which  faith  and  hope  yet  had  to 
build  upon;  and  with  the  grace  revealed  to  him,  he  could 
scarcely,  if  really  standing  in  faith  and  hope,  have  expected 
less. 

We  deem  it  incredible,  that  with  the  grant  of  the  earth  so 
distinctly  made  to  man  for  his  possession,  and  death  so  ex- 
pressly appointed  as  the  penalty  of  his  yielding  to  the  tempter, 
ne  should,  as  a  subject  of  restoring  grace,  have  looked  for  any 
other  domain  as  the  result  of  the  divine  work  in  his  behalf, 
than  the  earth  itself,  or  for  any  other  mode  of  entering  on 
the  recovered  possession  of  it,  than  through  a  resurrection 
from  the  dead.  For  how  should  he  have  dreamt  of  a  victory 
over  evil  in  any  other  region  than  that  where  the  evil  had 
prevailed  ?  Or  how  could  the  hope  of  restitution  have  formed 
itself  in  his  bosom,  excepting  as  a  prospective  reinstatement 
in  the  benefits  he  had  forfeited?  A  paradise  such  as  he  had 
originally  occupied,  but  prepared  now  for  the  occupation  of 
redeemed  multitudes — made  to  embrace,  it  may  be,  the  entire 
territory  of  the  globe — wrested  forever  from  the  serpent's 
brood,  and  rendered  through  all  its  borders  beautiful  and 
good:  that,  and  nothing  else,  we  conceive,  must  have  been 
what  the  first  race  of  patriarchal  believers  hoped  and  waited 
for,  as  the  objective  portion  of  good  reserved  for  them. 

But  in  process  of  time  the  deluge  came,  changing  to  a 
considerable  extent  the  outward  appearance  of  the  earth,  and 
in  certain  respects  also  the  government  under  which  it  was 
placed,  and  so  preparing  the  way  for  a  corresponding  change 
in  the  hopes  that  were  to  be  cnerished  of  a  coming  inher- 
itance. The  old  world  then  perished,  leaving  no  remnant  of 
its  original  paradise,  any  more  than  of  the  giant  enormities 
which  had  caused  it  to  groan,  as  in  pain  to  be  delivered. 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  331 

But  the  new  world,  cleansed  and  purified  by  the  judgment 
of  God,  was  now,  without  limit  or  restriction,  given  to  Noah, 
as  the  saved  head  of  mankind,  that  he  might  keep  it  for  God, 
replenish  and  subdue  it, — might  work  it,  if  such  a  thing  were 
possible,  into  the  condition  of  a  second  paradise.  It  soon 
became  too  manifest,  however,  that  this  was  not  possible ;  and 
that  the  righteousness  of  faith,  of  which  Noah  was  heir,  was 
still  not  that  which  could  prevail  to  banish  sin  and  death, 
corruption  and  misery,  from  the  world.  Another  and  better 
foundation  yet  remained  to  be  laid  for  such  a  blessed  pros- 
pect to  be  realized.  But  the  promise  of  this  very  earth  was 
nevertheless  given  for  man's  inheritance,  and  witn  a  promise 
securing  it  against  any  fresh  destruction.  The  needed  right- 
eousness was  somehow  to  be  wrought  upon  it,  and  the  region 
itself  reclaimed  so  as  to  become  a  habitation  of  blessing.  This 
was  now  the  heritage  of  a  good  set  before  mankind ;  to  have 
this  realized  was  the  object  which  they  were  called  of  God 
to  hope  and  strive  for.  And  it  was  with  this  object  before 
them — an  object,  however,  to  which  the  events  immediately 
subsequent  to  the  deluge  did  not  seem  to  be  bringing  them 
nearer,  but  rather  to  be  carrying  them  more  remote — that 
the  call  to  Abraham  entered.  This  call,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  was  of  the  largest  and  most  comprehensive  nature  as  to 
the  personal  and  subjective  good  it  contemplated.  It  aimed 
at  the  bestowal  of  blessing, — -blessing,  of  course,  in  the  divine 
sense,  including  the  fullest  triumph  over  sin  and  death  (for 
where  these  are,  there  can  be  but  the  beginnings  or  smaller 
drops  of  blessing);  and  the  bestowal  of  them  on  Abraham 
and  his  lineal  offspring,  first  and  most  copiously,  but  only  as 
the  more  effectual  way  of  extending  them  to  all  the  families 
of  mankind.  The  grand  object  of  the  covenant  made  with 
him  was  to  render  the  world  truly  blessed  in  its  inhabitants, 
himself  forming  the  immediate  starting-point  of  the  design, 
which  was  thereafter  to  grow  and  germinate,  till  the  whole 
circle  of  humanity  were  embraced  in  its  beneficent  provisions. 
But  in  connection  with  this  higher  and  grander  object,  there 
was  singled  out  a  portion  of  the  earth  for  the  occupation  of 
his  immediate  descendants  in  a  particular  line — the  more  spe- 
cial line  of  blessing;  and  the  conclusion  is  obvious,  even 
before  we  go  into  an  examination  of  particulars,  that  unless 
this  select  portion  of  the  world  were  placed  in  utter  disagree- 
ment with  the  higher  ends  of  the  covenant,  it  must  have  been 
but  a  stepping-stone  to  their  accomplishment — a  kind  of  first- 
fruits  of  the  proper  good — the  occupation  of  a  part  of  the 
promised  inheritance  by  a  portion  of  the  heirs  of  messing  to 
image  and  prepare  for  the  inheritance  of  the  whole  by  the 


832  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOEIPTURE. 

entire  company  of  the  blessed.  The  particular  must  here 
also  have  been  for  the  sake  of  the  general,  the  universal,  the 
ultimate. 

Proceeding,  however,  to  a  closer  view  of  the  subject,  we 
notice,  first,  the  region  actually  selected  for  a  possession  of 
an  inheritance  to  the  covenant  people.  The  land  of  Canaan 
occupied  a  place  in  the  ancient  world  that  entirely  corre- 
sponded with  the  calling  of  such  a  people.  It  was  of  all  lands 
the  best  adapted  for  a  people  who  were  at  once  to  dwell  in 
comparative  isolation,  and  yet  were  to  be  in  a  position  for  act- 
ing with  effect  upon  the  other  nations  of  the  world.  Hence 
it  was  said  by  Ezekiel '  to  have  been  "  set  in  the  midst  of  the 
countries  and  the  nations"  the  umbilicus  terrarum.  In  its 
immediate  vicinity  lay  both  the  most  densely-peopled  coun- 
tries and  the  greater  and  more  influential  states  of  antiquity, 
— on  the  south,  Egypt,  and  on  the  north  and  east,  Assyria 
and  Babylon,  the  Medes  and  the  Persians.  Still  closer  were 
the  maritime  states  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  whose  vessels  fre- 
quented every  harbor  then  known  to  navigation,  and  whose 
colonies  were  planted  in  each  of  the  three  continents  of  the 
old  world.  And  the  great  routes  of  inland  commerce  between 
the  civilized  nations  of  Asia  and  Africa  lay  either  through  a 
portion  of  the  territory  itself,  or  within  a  short  distance  of  its 
borders.  Yet,  bounded  as  it  was  on  the  west  by  the  Medi- 
terranean, on  the  south  by  the  desert,  on  the  east  by  the  val- 
ley of  the  Jordan  with  its  two  seas  of  Tiberias  and  Sodom, 
and  on  the  north  by  the  towering  heights  of  Lebanon,  the 
people  who  inhabited  it  might  justly  be  said  to  dwell  alone, 
while  they  had  on  every  side  points  of  contact  with  the  most 
influential  and  distant  nations.  Then  the  land  itself,  in  its 
rich  soil  and  plentiful  resources,  its  varieties  of  hill  and  dale, 
of  river  and  mountain,  its  connection  with  the  sea  on  one 
side  and  with  the  desert  on  another,  rendered  it  a  kind  of 
epitome  of  the  natural  world,  and  fitted  it  peculiarly  for  being 
the  home  of  those  who  were  to  be  a  pattern  people  to  the 
nations  of  the  earth.  Altogether,  it  were  impossible  to  con- 
ceive a  region  more  wisely  selected  and  in  itself  more  thor- 
oughly adapted,  for  the  purposes  on  account  of  which  the 
family  of  Abraham  were  to  be  set  apart.  If  they  were  faith- 
ful to  their  covenant  engagements,  they  might  there  have 
exhibited,  as  on  an  elevated  platform,  before  the  world  the 
bright  exemplar  of  a  people  possessing  the  characteristics 
and  enjoying  the  advantages  of  a  seed  of  blessing.  And  the 
finest  opportunities  were  at  the  same  time  placed  within  their 

>  Oh.  v.  6. 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  833 

reach  of  proving  in  the  highest  sense  benefactors  to  mankind, 
and  extending  far  and  wide  the  interest  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness. Possessing  the  elements  of  the  world's  blessing, 
they  were  placed  where  these  elements  might  tell  most  read- 
ily and  powerfully  on  the  world's  inhabitants;  and  the  pres- 
ent possession  of  such  a  region  was  at  once  an  earnest  of 
the  whole  inheritance,  and,  as  the  world  then  stood,  an  effec- 
tual step  towards  its  realization.  Abraham,  as  the  heir  of 
Canaan,  was  thus  also  "  the  heir  of  the  world,"  considered  as 
a  heritage  of  blessing.1 

But,  next,  let  us  mark  the  precise  words  of  the  promise  to 
Abraham  concerning  this  inheritance.  As  it  first  occurs,  it 
runs,  "  Get  thee  out  of  thy  country,  and  from  thy  kindred,  and 
from  thy  father's  house,  unto  a  land  that  I  will  show  thee; 
and  I  will  make  of  thee  a  great  nation,"  etc.*  Then,  when  he 
reached  Canaan,  the  promise  was  renewed  to  him  in  these 
terms :  "  Unto  thy  seed  will  I  give  this  land."  *  More  fully  and 
definitely,  after  Lot  separated  from  Abraham,  was  it  again 
given:  "Lift  up  now  thine  eyes,  and  look  from  the  place 
where  thou  art.,  northward,  and  southward,  and  eastward,  and 
westward:  for  all  the  land  which  thou  seest,  to  thee  will  I 
give  it,  and  to  thy  seed  forever."4  Again,  in  ch.  xv.  7,  "I 
am  the  Lord  that  brought  thee  out  of  U r  of  the  Chaldees,  to 
give  thee  this  land  to  inherit  it ; "  and  toward  the  close  of  the 
same  chapter  it  is  said,  "  In  the  same  day  the  Lord  made  a 
covenant  with  Abram,  saying,  Unto  thy  seed  have  I  given  this 
land,  from  the  river  of  Egypt  unto  the  great  river.  In  ch. 
17th  the  promise  was  formally  ratified  as  a  covenant,  and 
sealed  by  the  ordinance  of  circumcision ;  and  there  the  words 
used  respecting  the  inheritance  are,  "I  will  give  unto  thee, 
and  to  thy  seed  after  thee,  the  land  wherein  thou  art  a  stran- 
ger, all  the  land  of  Canaan,  for  an  everlasting  possession ;  and 
I  will  be  their  God."  We  read  only  of  one  occasion  in  the 
life  of  Isaac,  when  he  received  the  promise  of  the  inheritance ; 
and  the  words  then  used  were,  "  Unto  thee,  and  unto  thy  seed 
will  I  give  all  these  countries;  and  I  will  perform  the  oath 
which  I  sware  unto  Abraham  thy  father."'  Such  also  were 
the  words  addressed  to  Jacob  at  Bethel,  "I  am  the  Lord 
God  of  Abraham  thy  father,  and  the  God  of  Isaac :  the  land 
whereon  thou  liest,  to  thee  will  I  give  it,  and  to  thy  seed;" 
and  in  precisely  the  same  terms  was  the  promise  again  made 
to  Jacob  many  years  afterwards,  as  recorded  in  ch.  xxxv.  12. 
It  can  not  but  appear  striking,  that  to  each  one  of  these  patri- 

'  Rom.  iv.  13.  *  Gen.  xii.  1.  »  Ver.  7. 

4  Gen.  xiii.  14,  15.  •  Gen.  xxvi.  3. 


884  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

arche  successively,  the  promise  of  the  land  of  Canaan  should 
have  been  given,  first  to  themselves,  and  then  to  their  poster 
ity;  while,  during  their  own  lifetimes,  they  never  were  per- 
mitted to  get  beyond  the  condition  of  strangers  and  pilgrims, 
having  no  right  to  any  possession  within  its  borders,  and 
obliged  to  purchase  at  the  marketable  value  a  small  field  for 
a  burying-ground.  How  shall  we  account  for  the  promise, 
then,  so  uniformly  running,  "to  thee,"  and  to  "thy  seed"? 
Some,  as  Ainsworth  and  Bush,  tell  us  that  and  here  is  the 
same  as  even — to  thee,  even  to  thy  seed ;  as  if  a  man  were  all 
one  with  his  offspring,  or  the  name  of  the  latter  were  but 
another  name  for  himself!  Gill  gives  a  somewhat  more  plaus- 
ible turn  to  it,  thus :  "  God  gave  Abram  the  title  to  it  now, 
and  to  them  the  possession  of  it  for  future  times ;  gave  him 
it  to  sojourn  in  now  where  he  pleased,  and  for  his  posterity 
to  dwell  in  hereafter."  But  the  gift  was  the  land  for  an  in- 
heritance, not  for  a  place  of  sojourn ;  and  a  title,  which  left 
him  personally  without  a  foot's-breadth  of  possession,  could 
not  be  regarded  in  that  light  as  any  real  boon  to  him.  War- 
burton,  as  usual,  confronts  the  difficulty  more  boldly:  "In  the 
literal  sense,  it  is  a  promise  of  the  land  of  Canaan  to  Abra- 
ham and  to  his  posterity ;  and  in  this  sense  it  was  literally 
fulfilled,  though  Abraham  was  never  personally  in  possession 
of  it:  since  Abraham  and  his  posterity,  put  collectively,  sig- 
nify the  RACE  OF  ABRAHAM  ;  and  that  race  possessed  the  land  of 
Canaan.  And  surely  God  may  be  allowed  to  explain  His  own 
promise :  now,  though  He  tells  Abraham,  He  would  give  him 
the  land,  yet  at  the  same  time  He  assures  him  that  it  would 
be  many  hundred  years  before  his  posterity  should  be  put  in 
possession  of  it.1  And  as  concerning  himself,  that  he  should 
go  to  his  fathers  in  peace,  and  be  buried  in  a  good  old  age. 
Thus  we  see  that  both  what  God  explained  to  be  His  mean- 
ing, and  what  Abraham  understood  Him  to  mean,  was,  that 
his  posterity,  after  a  certain  time,  should  be  led  into  posses- 
sion of  the  land."* 

But  if  this  were  really  the  whole  meaning,  the  thought 
naturally  occurs,  it  is  strange  so  plain  a  meaning  should  have 
been  so  ambiguously  expressed.  Why  not  simply  say,  "  thy 
posterity,"  if  posterity  alone  were  intended,  and  so  render 
unnecessary  the  somewhat  awkward  expedient  of  sinking 
the  patriarch's  individuality  in  the  history  of  his  race?  Why 
also,  should  the  promise  have  been  renewed  at  a  later  period 
with  a  pointed  otistinction  between  Abraham  and  his  poster- 
ity, yet  with  an  assurance  that  the  promise  was  to  nim  as 

1  Gen.  XT.  13,  etc.  *  Legation  of  Moses,  B.  TL  sea.  8. 


THE  DESTINED  INHEBTTANCE.  335 

well  as  to  them:  "And  I  will  give  unto  thee,  and  to  thy 
eeed  after  thee,  the  land  wherein  thou  art  a  stranger?"  And 
why  should  Stephen  have  made  such  special  reference  to  the 
apparent  incongruity  between  the  personal  condition  of  Abra- 
ham and  the  promise  given  to  him,  as  if  there  were  some 
further  meaning  in  what  was  said  than  lay  on  the  surface : 
"  He  gave  him  none  inheritance  in  it,  no,  not  so  much  as  to 
set  his  foot  on :  yet  He  promised  to  give  it  to  him  for  a  pos- 
session, and  to  his  seed  after  him  ?  " 1 

We  do  not  see  how  these  questions  can  receive  any  satis- 
factory explanation,  so  long  as  no  account  is  made  of  the  per- 
sonal standing  of  the  patriarchs  in  regard  to  the  promise. 
And  there  are  others  equally  left  without  explanation.  For 
no  sufficient  reason  can  be  assigned  on  that  hypothesis,  for 
the  extreme  anxiety  of  Jacob  and  Joseph  to  have  their  bones 
carried  to  the  sepulchre  of  their  fathers,  in  the  land  of  Canaan 
— betokening,  as  it  evidently  seemed  to  do,  a  conviction  that 
to  them  also  belonged  a  personal  interest  in  the  land.  Nei- 
ther does  it  appear  how  the  fact  of  Abraham  and  his  imme- 
diate offspring,  "  confessing  that  they  were  strangers  and 
pilgrims  on  the  earth," — which  they  did  no  otherwise,  that 
we  are  aware  of,  than  by  living  as  strangers  and  pilgrims  in 
Canaan, — should  have  proved  that  they  were  looking  for  and 
desiring  a  better  country,  that  is,  an  heavenly  one.  And 
then,  strange  to  think,  if  nothing  more  were  meant  by  the 
promise  than  the  view  now  under  consideration  would  imply, 
when  the  posterity  who  were  to  occupy  the  land  did  obtain 
possession  of  it,  we  find  the  men  of  faith  taking  up  exactly 
the  same  confession  as  to  their  being  strangers  and  pilgrims 
in  it,  which  was  witnessed  by  their  forefathers,  who  never 
had  it  in  possession.  Even  after  they  became  possessors,  it 
seems  they  were  still,  like  their  wandering  ancestors,  expect- 
ants and  heirs  of  something  better;  and  faith  had  to  be  ex- 
ercised, lest  they  should  lose  the  proper  fulfilment  of  the 
promise.*  Surely  if  the  earthly  Canaan  had  been  the  whole 
inheritance  they  were  warranted  to  look  for,  after  they  were 
settled  in  it,  the  condition  of  pilgrims  and  strangers  no  longer 
was  theirs — they  had  reached  their  proper  destiny — they  were 
dwelling  in  their  appointed  home — the  promise  had  received 
its  intended  fulfilment. 

These  manifold  difficulties  and  apparent  inconsistencies 
will  vanish — (and  we  see  no  other  way  in  which  they  can  be 
satisfactorily  removed)— by  supposing,  what  is  certainly  in 
accordance  with  the  tenor  of  revelation,  that  the  promise  of 

1  Acts  vii.  5.  »  Ps.  mix.  12,  xcv.,  oziz.  19;  1  Chron.  ***•*-  15. 


336  THE  TYPOLOGY  Otf  SCBIPTTJEE. 

Canaan  as  an  inheritance  to  the  people  of  God  was  part  of  a 
connected  and  growing  scheme  of  preparatory  arrangements, 
which  were  to  have  their  proper  outgoing  and  final  termina- 
tion in  the  establishment  of  Christ's  everlasting  kingdom. 
Viewed  thus,  the  grant  of  Canaan  must  be  regarded  as  a 
kind  of  second  Eden,  a  sacred  region  once  more  possessed  in 
this  fallen  world — God's  own  land — out  of  which  life  and 
blessing  were  to  come  for  all  lands — the  present  type  of  a 
world  restored  and  blessed.  And  if  so,  then  we  may  natu- 
rally expect  the  following  consequences  to  have  arisen :  First, 
that  whatever  transactions  may  have  taken  place  concerning 
the  actual  Canaan,  these  would  be  all  ordered  so  as  to  sub- 
serve the  higher  design,  in  connection  with  which  the  ap- 
pointment was  made;  and  second,  that  as  a  sort  of  veil  must 
nave  been  allowed  meanwhile  to  hang  over  this  ultimate  de- 
sign (for  the  issue  of  redemption  could  not  be  made  fully 
manifest  till  the  redemption  itself  was  brought  in),  a  certain 
degree  of  dubiety  would  attach  to  some  of  the  things  spoken 
regarding  it:  these  would  appear  strange  or  impossible,  if 
viewed  only  in  reference  to  the  temporary  inheritance ;  and 
would  have  the  effect  with  men  of  faith,  as  no  doubt  they 
were  intended,  to  compel  the  mind  to  break  through  the  out- 
ward shell  of  the  promise,  and  contemplate  the  rich  kernel 
enclosed  within.  Thus  the  promise  being  made  so  distinctly 
and  repeatedly  to  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  while  person- 
ally they  were  allowed  no  settled  footing  in  the  inheritance 
bestowed,  could  scarcely  fail  to  impress  them,  and  their  more 
pious  descendants,  with  the  conviction  that  higher  and  more 
important  relations  were  included  under  those  in  which  they 
stood  to  the  land  of  Canaan  during  their  earthly  sojourn,  and 
such  as  required  another  order  of  things  to  fulfil  them.  They 
must  have  been  convinced  that,  for  some  great  and  substan- 
tial reason,  not  by  a  mere  fiction  of  the  imagination,  they  had 
been  identified  by  God  with  their  posterity  as  to  their  inter- 
est in  the  promised  inheritance.  And  so  they  must  have  felt 
shut  up  to  the  belief,  that  when  God's  purposes  were  com- 
pletely fulfilled,  His  word  of  promise  would  be  literally  veri- 
fied, and  that  their  respective  deaths  should  ultimately  be 
found  to  raise  no  effectual  barrier  in  the  way  of  their  actual 
share  in  the  inheritance ;  as  the  same  God  who  would  have 
raised  Isaac  from  the  dead,  had  he  been  put  to  death,  to  main- 
tain the  integrity  of  His  word,  was  equally  able,  on  the  same 
account,  to  raise  them  up. 

Certainly  the  exact  and  perfect  manner  in  which  the  other 
line  of  promise — that  whicn  respected  a  seed  to  Abraham — 
was  fulfilled,  gave  reason  to  expect  a  fulfilment  in  regard  to 


THE  DESTINED  INHEEITANCK  837 

this  also,  in  the  most  proper  and  complete  sense.  Abraham 
did  not  at  first  understand  how  closely  God's  words  were  to 
be  interpreted;  and  after  waiting  in  vain  for  some  years 
for  the  promised  seed  by  Sarah,  he  began  to  think  that  God 
must  have  meant  an  offspring  that  should  be  his  only  by 
adoption,  and  seems  to  have  thought  of  constituting  the  son 
of  his  steward  his  heir.  Then,  when  admonished  of  his  error 
in  entertaining  such  a  thought,  and  informed  that  the  seed 
was  to  spring  from  his  own  loins,  he  acceded,  after  another 
long  period  of  fruitless  waiting,  to  the  proposal  of  Sarah  re- 
garding Hagar,  under  the  impression,  that  though  he  was  to 
be  the  father  of  the  seed,  yet  it  should  not  be  by  his  proper 
wife ;  the  expected  good  was  to  be  obtained  by  a  worldly  ex- 
pedient, and  to  become  his  only  through  a  tortuous  policy. 
Here  again,  however,  he  was  admonished  of  error,  commanded 
to  cease  from  such  unworthy  devices,  and  walk  in  upright- 
ness before  God;  was  reminded  that  He  who  made  the  prom- 
ise was  the  Almighty  God,  to  whom,  therefore,  no  impossi- 
bility connected  with  the  age  of  Sarah  could  be  of  any 
moment,  and  assured  that  the  long  promised  child  was  to  be 
the  son  of  him  and  his  lawful  spouse.1  Now,  when  Abraham 
was  thus  taught  to  interpret  one  part  of  the  promise  in  the 
most  exact  and  literal  sense,  how  natural  was  it  to  infer  that 
he  must  do  the  same  also  with  the  other  part !  If,  when  God 
said,  "  Thou  shalt  be  the  father  of  a  seed,"  it  became  clear 
that  the  word  could  receive  nothing  short  of  the  strictest  ful- 
filment; what  else,  what  less,  could  be  expected  when  God 
said,  "  Thou  shalt  inherit  this  land,"  than  that  the  fulfilment 
was  to  be  equally  proper  and  complete  ?  The  providence  of 
God,  which  furnished  such  an  interpretation  in  the  one  case 
could  not  but  beget  the  conviction  that  a  similar  principle  of 
interpretation  was  to  be  applied  to  the  other;  and  that  as  the 
promise  of  the  inheritance  was  given  to  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  as  well  as  to  their  seed,  so  it  should  be  made  good 
in  their  experience,  not  less  than  in  that  of  their  posterity. 

No  doubt,  such  a  belief  implied  that  there  must  be  a  resur- 
rection from  the  dead  before  the  promise  could  be  realized ; 
and  to  those  who  conceive  that  immortality  was  altogether  a 
blank  page  to  the  eye  of  an  ancient  Israelite,  the  idea  may 
seem  to  carry  its  own  refutation  along  with  it.  The  Rabbis, 
however,  with  all  their  blindness,  seemed  to  have  had  juster, 
because  more  scriptural,  notions  of  the  truth  and  purposes 
of  God  in  this  respect.  For,  on  Ex.  vi.  4,  the  Talmud  in  Ge- 
mara,  in  reply  to  the  question,  "  Where  does  the  law 'teach 

>  Gen.  rvii  1-17. 
TOL.  L — 22 


a^8  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

the  resurrection  of  the  dead?"  thus  distinctly  answers,  "In 
that  place  where  it  is  said,  I  have  established  my  covenant 
with  thee,  to  give  thee  the  land  of  Canaan.  For  it  is  not  said 
with  you,  but  with  thee  Hit.  yourselves)."  *  The  same  answer, 
substantially,  we  are  told,  was  returned  by  Rabbi  Gamaliel, 
when  the  Sadducees  pressed  him  with  a  similar  question. 
And  in  a  passage  quoted  by  Warburton  (B.  vi.  sec.  3)  from 
Manasseh  Ben-Israel,  we  find  the  argument  still  more  fully 
stated :  "  God  said  to  Abraham,  I  will  give  to  thee,  and  to  thy 
seed  after  thee,  the  land  wherein  thou  art  a  stranger.  But  it 
appears  that  Abraham  and  the  other  patriarchs  did  not  pos- 
sess that  land ;  therefore  it  is  of  necessity  that  they  should  be 
raised  up  to  enjoy  the  good  promises,  else  the  promises  of  God 
should  be  in  vain  and  false.  So  that  we  have  here  a  proof, 
not  only  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  but  also  of  the  essential 
foundation  of  the  law,  namely,  the  resurrection  of  the  dead." 
It  is  surely  not  too  much  to  suppose  that  what  Jewish  Rab- 
bis could  so  certainly  draw  from  the  word  of  God,  may  have 
been  perceived  by  wise  and  holy  patriarchs.  And  the  fact, 
of  which  an  inspired  writer  assures  us,  that  Abraham  so 
readily  believed  in  the  possible  resurrection  of  Isaac  to  a 
present  life,  is  itself  conclusive  proof  that  he  would  not  be 
slow  to  believe  in  his  own  resurrection  to  a  future  life,  when 
the  word  of  promise  seemed  no  otherwise  capable  of  receiv- 
ing its  proper  fulfilment.  Indeed,  the  doctrine  of  a  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead — not  that  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul — 
is  the  form  which  the  prospect  of  an  after  state  of  being  must 
have  chiefly  assumed  in  the  minds  of  the  earlier  believers, 
because  that  which  most  obviously  and  naturally  grew  out 
of  the  promises  made  to  them,  as  well  as  most  accordant  with 
their  native  cast  of  thought.  And  nothing  but  the  undue  in- 
fluence of  the  Gentile  philosophy  on  men's  minds  could  have 
led  them  to  imagine,  as  they  generally  have  done,  the  reverse 
to  have  been  the  case. 

In  the  writings  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  especially  those 
of  the  former,  we  find  the  distinction  constantly  drawn  be- 
tween matter  and  spirit,  body  and  soul;  and  the  one  gener- 
ally represented  as  having  only  elements  of  evil  inhenng  in 
it,  and  the  other  elements  of  good.  So  far  from  looking  for 
the  resurrection  of  the  body  as  necessary  to  the  final  well- 
being  of  men,  full  and  complete  happiness  was  held  to  be 
impossible  so  long  as  the  soul  was  united  to  the  body.  Death 
was  so  far  considered  by  them  a  boon,  that  it  emancipated 

1  Sic  habetor  traditio  Rab.  Simai;  quo  loco  astruit  Lex  resurrectionem 
mortuorum?  Nempe  nbi  dicitnr,  "Aque  etiam  constabilivi  foedus  meum 
earn  ipsis,  at  dem  ipsis  terrain  Canaan.  Non  enim  dicitur  vobis  sed  ipsis. 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  839 

the  ethereal  principle  from  its  prison-house;  and  their  vi- 
sions of  future  bliss,  when  such  visions  were  entertained,  pre- 
sented to  the  eye  of  hope  scenes  of  delight,  in  which  the 
disembodied  spirit  alone  was  to  find  its  satisfaction  and  repose. 
Hence  it  is  quite  natural  to  hear  the  better  part  of  them 
speaking  with  contempt  of  all  that  concerned  the  body,  look- 
ing upon  death  as  a  final  as  well  as  a  happy  release  from  its 
vile  affections,  and  promising  themselves  a  perennial  enjoy- 
ment in  the  world  of  spirits.  "  In  what  way  shall  we  bury 
you  ?  "  said  Crito  to  Socrates,  immediately  before  his  death. 
"  As  you  please,"  was  the  reply.  "  I  can  not,  my  friends,  uer- 
suade  Onto  that  I  am  the  Socrates  that  is  now  conversing 
and  ordering  every  thing  that  has  been  said ;  but  he  thinks 
I  am  that  man  whom  he  will  shortly  see  a  corpse,  and  asks 
how  you  should  bury  me.  But  what  I  have  ail  along  been 
talking  so  much  about — that  when  I  shall  have  drunk  the 
poison,  I  shall  no  longer  stay  with  you,  but  shall,  forsooth, 
go  away  to  certain  felicities  of  the  blest— this  I  seem  to  my- 
self to  have  been  saying  in  vain,  whilst  comforting  at  tne 
same  time  you  and  myself."  And  in  another  part  of  the 
same  dialogue  (Phsedo),  after  speaking  of  the  impossibility  of 
attaining  to  the  true  knowledge  and  discernment  of  things, 
so  long  as  the  soul  is  kept  in  the  lumpish  and  impure  body, 
he  is  represented  as  congratulating  himself  on  tne  prospect 
now  immediately  before  him :  "  If  these  things  are  true,  there 
is  much  reason  to  hope  that  he  who  has  reached  my  present 
position  shall  there  soon  abundantly  obtain  that  for  the  sake 
of  which  I  have  labored  so  hard  during  this  life ;  so  that  I 
encounter  with  a  lively  hope  my  appointed  removal"  No 
doubt  such  representations  give  a  highly  colored  and  far 
too  favorable  view  of  the  expectations  which  the  more  specu- 
ulative  part  of  the  heathen  world  cherished  of  a  future  state 
of  being;  for  to  most  of  them  the  whole  was  overshadowed 
with  doubt  and  uncertainty — too  often,  indeed,  the  subject  of 
absolute  unbelief.  But  in  this  respect  the  idea  it  presents  is 
perfectly  correct,  that  so  far  as  hope  was  exercised  toward  the 
future,  it  connected  itself  altogether  with  the  condition  and 
destiny  of  the  soul ;  and  so  abhorrent  was  the  thought  of  a 
resurrection  of  the  body  to  their  notions  of  future  good,  that 
Tertullian  did  not  hesitate  to  affirm  the  heresy,  which  denied 
that  Christian  doctrine,  to  be  the  common  retult  of  the  whole 
Gentile  philosophy.1 

It  was  precisely  the  reverse  with  believers  in  ancient  and 
primitive  times.     Their  prospects  of  a  blessed  immortality 

>  Ut  carnis  restitutio  negetur,  de  nna  omnium  philosophorum  schola  sum- 
itui.     De  Praesc.  adv.  Haeret.  §  7. 


MO  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

were  mainly  associated  with  the  resurrection  of  the  body; 
and  the  dark  period  to  them  was  the  intermediate  state  be- 
tween death  and  the  resurrection,  which  even  at  a  compar- 
atively late  stage  in  their  history  presented  itself  to  their 
view  as  a  state  of  gloom,  silence,  and  forgetfulness.  They 
contemplated  man,  not  in  the  light  in  which  an  abstract  spec- 
ulative philosophy  might  regard  him,  but  in  the  more  natu- 
ral and  proper  one  of  a  compound  being,  to  which  matter  as 
essentially  belongs  as  spirit,  and  in  the  well-being  of  which 
there  must  unite  the  happy  condition  both  of  soul  and  body. 
Nay,  the  materials  from  which  they  had  to  form  their  views 
and  prospects  of  a  future  state  of  being  pointed  most  directly 
to  the  resurrection  and  passed  over  in  silence  the  period 
intervening  between  that  and  death.  Thus,  the  primeval 
promise,  that  the  seed  of  the  woman  should  bruise  the  head 
of  the  serpent,  taught  them  to  live  in  expectation  of  a  time 
when  death  should  be  swallowed  up  in  victory;  for  death  be- 
ing the  fruit  of  the  serpent's  triumph,  what  else  could  his 
complete  overthrow  be  than  the  reversal  of  death — the  resur- 
rection from  the  dead?  So  also  the  prophecy  embodied  in 
the  emblems  of  the  tree  of  life,  still  standing  in  the  midst  of 
the  garden  of  Eden,  with  its  way  of  approach  meanwhile 
gaurded  by  the  flaming  sword,  and  possessed  by  the  cherubim 
of  glory — implying  that  when  the  spoiler  should  be  himself 
spoiled,  and  the  way  of  life  should  again  be  laid  open  for  the 
children  of  promise,  they  should  have  access  to  the  food  of 
immortality,  which  they  could  only  do  by  rising  out  of  death 
and  entering  on  the  resurrection  state.  The  same  conclusion 
grew,  as  we  have  just  seen,  most  naturally,  and  we  may  say 
inevitably,  out  of  that  portion  of  the  promises  made  to  the 
fathers  of  the  Jewish  race,  which  assured  them  of  a  personal 
inheritance  in  the  land  of  Canaan;  for  dying,  as  they  did, 
without  having  obtained  any  inheritance  in  it,  how  could  the 
word  of  promise  be  verified  to  them,  but  by  their  being  raised 
from  the  dead  to  receive  what  it  warranted  them  to  expect  ? 
In  perfect  accordance  with  these  earlier  intimations,  or,  as 
they  may  fitly  be  called,  fundamental  promises,  we  find,  as 
we  descend  the  stream  of  time,  and  listen  to  the  more  express 
utterances  of  prophecy  regarding  the  hopes  of  the  Church, 
that  the  grand  point  on  which  they  are  all  made  to  centre  is 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead;  and  it  is  so,  doubtless,  for 
the  reason,  that  as  death  is  from  the  first  represented  as  the 
wages  of  sin,  the  evil  pre-eminently  under  which  humanity 
groans,  so  the  abolition  of  death  by  mortality  being  swallowed 
up  of  life,  is  understood  to  carry  in  its  train  the  restitution 
of  all  things. 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  841 

The  Psalms,  which  are  so  fall  of  the  experiences  and  hopes 
of  David,  and  other  holy  men  of  old,  while  they  express  only 
fear  and  discomfort  in  regard  to  the  state  after  death,  not  un- 
frequently  point  to  the  resurrection  from  the  dead  as  the 
great  consummation  of  desire  and  expectation:  "My  flesh 
also  shall  rest  in  hope :  for  Thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul  in 
hell ;  neither  wilt  Thou  suffer  thine  Holy  One  to  see  corrup- 
tion."1 "  Like  sheep  they  are  laid  in  the  grave;  death  shall 
feed  on  them;  and  the  upright  shall  have  dominion  over 
them  in  the  morning; -and  their  beauty  shall  consume  in  the 
grave  from  their  dwelling.  But  God  will  redeem  my  soul 
from  the  power  of  the  grave;  for  He  shall  receive  me:"* — 
thus  expressing  belief,  not  only  in  a  prolonged  existence  in 
Sheol,  but  in  an  ultimate  return  from  its  chambers.  The 
prophets,  who  are  nearly  silent  regarding  the  state  of  the 
disembodied  soul,  speak  even  more  explicitly  of  a  resurrection 
from  the  dead,  and  evidently  connect  with  it  the  brightest 
hopes  of  the  Church.  Thus  Isaiah:  "He  will  swallow  up 
death  in  victory"  (xxv.  8) ;  and  again,  "  Thy  dead  men  shall 
live,  together  with  my  dead  body  shall  they  arise.  Awake 
and  sing,  ye  that  dwell  in  the  dust "  (xxvi.  19).  To  the  like 
effect,  Hosea  xiii.  14 :  "I  will  ransom  them  from  the  power 
of  the  grave ;  I  will  redeem  them  from  death :  0  death,  I  will 
be  thy  plagues;  0  grave,  I  will  be  thy  destruction."  The 
vision  of  the  dry  bones,  in  the  thirty-seventh  chapter  of  Eze- 
kiel,  whether  understood  of  a  literal  resurrection  from  the 
state  of  the  dead,  or  of  a  figurative  resurrection,  a  politi- 
cal resuscitation  from  a  downcast  and  degraded  condition, 
strongly  indicates,  in  either  case,  the  characteristic  nature  of 
their  future  prospects.  Then,  finally,  in  Daniel  we  read,  ch. 
xii.,  not  only  that  he  was  himself,  after  resting  for  a  season 
among  the  dead,  "to  stand  in  his  lot  at  the  end  of  the  days," 
but  also  that  at  the  great  crisis  of  the  Church's  history,  when 
they  should  be  forever  rescued  from  the  power  of  the  enemy, 
"many  of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  should 
awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  some  to  shame  and  ever- 
lasting contempt." 

Besides  these  direct  and  palpable  proofs  of  a  resurrection 
in  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  and  of  the  peculiar  place  it  holds 
there,  the  rabbinical  and  modern  Jews,  it  is  well  known, 
refer  to  many  others  as  inferentially  teaching  the  same  doc- 
trine. That  the  earlier  Jews  were  not  behind  them,  either 
in  the  importance  they  attached  to  the  doctrine,  or  in  their 
persuasion  of  its  frequent  recurrence  in  the  Old  Testament 

'  Ps.  xvi  9,  10.  «  Ps.  xlix.  14,  15. 


342  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTUBE. 

Scriptures,  we  may  assuredly  gather  from  the  tenacity  with 
which  all  but  the  Sadducees  evidently  held  it  in  our  Lord's 
time,  and  the  ready  approval  which  He  met  with  when  infer- 
ring it  from  the  declaration  made  to  Moses,  "  I  am  the  God 
of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob."  It  is  nothing  to  the 
purpose,  therefore,  to  allege,  as  has  often  been  done,  against 
any  clear  or  well-grounded  belief  on  the  part  of  the  ancient 
Jews  regarding  a  future  and  immortal  state  of  being,  such 
passages  as  speak  of  the  darkness,  silence,  and  nothingness 
of  the  condition  immediately  subsequent  to  death,  and  during 
the  sojourn  of  the  body  in  the  tomb ;  for  that  was  precisely 
the  period  in  respect  to  which  their  light  failed  them.  Of  a 
heathenish  immortality,  which  ascribed  to  the  soul  a  perpet- 
ual existence  separate  from  the  body,  and  considered  its 
happiness,  when  thus  separate,  as  the  ultimate  good  of  man, 
they  certainly  knew  and  believed  nothing.  But  we  are  per- 
suaded no  tenet  was  more  firmly  and  sacredly  held  among 
them  from  the  earliest  periods  of  their  history,  than  that  of 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  as  the  commencement  of  a 
final  and  everlasting  portion  of  good  to  the  people  of  God. 
And  when  the  Jewish  doctors  gave  to  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead  a  place  among  the  thirteen  fundamental  articles 
of  their  faith,  and  cut  off  from  all  inheritance  in  a  future 
etate  of  felicity  those  who  deny  it,  we  have  no  reason  to  re- 

fard  the  doctrine  as  attaining  to  a  higher  place  in  their 
ands,  than  it  did  with  their  fathers  before  the  Christian 
era. 

There  was  something  more,  however,  in  the  Jewish  faith 
concerning  the  resurrection  than  its  being  simply  held  as  an 
article  in  their  creed,  and  held  to  be  a  fact  tnat  should  one 
day  be  realized  in  the  history  of  the  Church.  It  stood  in 
the  closest  connection  with  the  promise  made  to  the  fathers, 
as  some  of  the  foregoing  testimonies  show,  and  especially 
with  the  work  and  advent  of  Messiah.  They  not  only  be- 
lieved that  there  would  be  a  resurrection  of  the  dead,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  when  Messiah  came,1  but  that  Hia 
work  especially  as  regards  the  promised  inheritance,  coulu 
only  be  carried  into  effect  through  the  resurrection.  Levi  • 
holds  it  as  a  settled  point,  that  "  the  resurrection  of  the  dead 
will  be  very  near  the  time  of  the  redemption,"  meaning  by 
the  redemption  the  full  and  final  enjoyment  of  all  blessing 
in  the  land  of  promise,  and  that  such  is  the  united  sense  of 
all  the  prophets  who  have  spoken  of  the  times  of  Messiah 
In  this,  indeed,  he  only  expresses  the  opinion  commonly  en 

>  See  Lightfoot,  EOT.  Heb.,  John  i.  21,  v.  25. 

*  Dissertations  on  the  Prophecies  of  Old  Test.,  vol  1.  p.  56. 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  348 

tertained  by  Jewish  writers,  who  constantly  assert  that  there 
will  be  a  resurrection  of  the  whole  Jewish  race,  tc  meet  and 
rejoice  with  Christ,  when  He  comes  to  Jerusalem,  and  who 
often  thrust  forward  their  views  regarding  it,  when  there  is 
no  proper  occasion  to  do  so.  Thus,  in  Sohar,  Genes.  foL  77, 
as  quoted  by  Schoettgen,  ii.  p.  367,  R.  Nehorai  is  reported  to 
have  said,  on  Abraham's  speaking  to  his  servant,  Gen.  xxiv. 
2,  "  We  are  to  understand  the  servant  of  God,  his  senior 
domus.  And  who  is  He  ?  Metatron  (Messiah),  who,  as  we 
have  said,  will  bring  forth  the  souls  from  their  sepulchres." 
But  a  higher  authority  still  may  be  appealed  to.  For  the 
apostle  to  the  Gentiles  thus  expresses — and  with  evident  ap- 
proval as  to  the  general  principle — the  mind  of  his  country- 
men in  regard  to  the  Messiah  and  the  resurrection :  "  I  now 
stand  and  am  judged  for  the  hope  of  the  promise  made  of 
God  unto  our  fathers ;  unto  which  promise  our  twelve  tribes, 
instantly  serving  God  day  and  night,  hope  to  come :  for  which 
hope's  sake,  king  Agrippa,  I  am  accused  of  the  Jews.  Why 
should  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible  with  you,  that  God 
should  raise  the  dead  ?  " *  The  connection  in  which  the  res- 
urrection of  the  dead  is  here  placed  with  the  great  promise 
of  a  Messiah,  for  which  the  Jews  are  represented  as  so  eagerly 
and  intently  looking,  evidently  implies  that  the  two  were 
usually  coupled  together  in  the  Jewish  faith,  nay,  that  the  one 
could  reach  its  proper  fulfilment  only  through  the  perform- 
ance of  the  other ;  and  that  in  believing  on  a  Messiah  risen 
from  the  dead,  the  apostle  was  acting  in  perfect  accordance 
with  the  hopes  of  his  nation. 

But  now,  to  apply  all  this  to  the  subject  under  considera- 
tion— the  earthly  mneritance :  If  that  inheritance  was  prom- 
ised in  a  way  which,  from  the  very  first,  implied  a  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead,  before  it  could  be  rightly  enjoyed;  and 
if  all  along,  even  when  Canaan  was  possessed  by  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  the  men  of  faith  still  looked  forward  to  another 
inheritance,  when  the  curse  should  be  utterly  abolished,  the 
blessing  fully  received,  and  death  finally  swallowed  up  in 
victory, — then  a  twofold  boon  must  have  been  conveyed  to 
Abraham  and  his  seed,  under  the  promise  of  the  land  of 
Canaan ;  one  to  be  realized  in  the  natural,  and  the  other  in 
the  resurrection,  state, — a  mingled  and  temporary  good  be- 
fore, and  a  complete  and  permanent  one  after,  the  restitution 
of  all  things  by  the  Messiah.  So  that,  in  regard  to  the  ulti- 
mate designs  of  God,  the  land  of  Canaan  would  serve  much 
the  same  purpose  as  the  garden  of  Eden,  with  its  tree  of  life 

i  Acts  xxvi.  6-8. 


844  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SORTPTUBE. 

and  cherubim  of  glory — the  same,  and  yet  more;  for  it  not 
only  presented  to  the  eye  of  faith  a  type,  but  also  gave  in  its 
possession  an  earnest,  of  the  inheritance  of  a  paradisiacal 
world.  The  difference,  however,  is  not  essential,  and  only 
indicates  an  advance  in  God's  revelations  and  purposes  of 
grace,  making  what  was  ultimately  designed  for  the  faith- 
nil  more  sure  to  them  by  an  instalment,  through  a  singular 
train  of  providential  arrangements,  in  a  present  inheritance 
of  good.  They  thus  enjoyed  a  real  and  substantial  pledge 
of  the  better  things  to  come,  which  were  to  be  fulfilled  in 
the  kingdom  of  God. 

But  what  were  these  better  things  themselves?  What 
was  thus  indicated  to  Abraham  and  his  believing  posterity, 
as  their  coming  inheritance  of  good  ?  If  it  was  clear  that 
they  must  have  attained  to  the  resurrection  from  the  dead 
before  they  could  properly  enjoy  the  possession,  it  could  not 
be  Canaan  in  its  natural  state,  as  a  region  of  the  present 
earth,  that  was  to  be  inherited;  for  that,  considered  as  the 
abode  of  Abraham  and  all  his  elect  posterity,  when  raised 
from  the  tomb  and  collected  into  an  innumerable  multitude, 
must  have  appeared  of  far  too  limited  dimensions,  as  well  as 
of  unsuitable  character.  Though  it  might  well  seem  a  vast 
inheritance  for  any  living  generation  that  should  spring  from 
the  loins  of  Abraham,  yet  it  was  palpably  inadequate  for  the 
possession  of  his  collected  seed,  when  it  should  have  become 
like  the  stars  of  heaven  for  multitude.  And  not  only  so; 
but  as  the  risen  body  is  to  be,  not  a  natural,  but  a  glorified 
one,  the  inheritance  it  is  to  occupy  must  be  a  glorified  one 
too.  The  fairest  portions  of  the  earth,  in  its  present  fallen 
and  corruptible  state,  could  be  a  fit  possession  for  men  only 
so  long  as  in  their  persons  they  are  themselves  fallen  and 
corruptible.  When  redeemed  from  the  power  of  the  grave, 
and  entered  on  the  glories  of  the  new  creation,  the  natural 
Canaan  will  be  as  unfit  to  be  their  proper  home  and  possession, 
as  the  original  Eden  would  have  been  with  its  tree  of  life. 
Much  more  so,  indeed, — for  the  earth  in  its  present  state  is 
adapted  to  the  support  and  enjoyment  of  man,  as  constituted 
not  only  after  the  earthly  Adam,  but  after  him  as  underlying 
the  pernicious  effects  of  the  curse.  And  the  ultimate  inher- 
itance destined  for  Abraham  and  the  heirs  of  promise,  which 
was  to  become  theirs  after  the  resurrection  from  the  dead, 
must  be  as  much  higher  and  better  than  any  thing  which 
the  earth,  in  its  present  state,  can  furnish,  as  man's  nature, 
when  glorified,  shall  be  higher  and  better  than  it  is  while  in 
bondage  to  sin  and  death. 

Nothing  less  than  this  certainly  is  taught  in  what  is  said  of 


THE  DESTINED  INHEEITANCE.  345 

the  inheritance,  as  expected  by  the  patriarchs,  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews :  "  These  all  died  in  faith,  not  having  received  the 
promises,  but  having  seen  them  afar  off,  and  were  persuaded 
of  them,  and  embraced  them,  and  confessed  that  they  wen 
strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth.  For  they  that  say  sucl 
things  declare  plainly  that  they  seek  a  country.  And  truly,  if 
they  had  been  mindful  of  that  country  from  whence  they  came 
out,  they  might  have  had  opportunity  to  have  returned.  But 
now  they  desire  a  better  country,  that  is,  an  heavenly:  where- 
fore God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God ;  for  He  hath 
prepared  for  them  a  city. " l  Without  entering  into  any  minute 
commentary  on  this  passage,  it  can  not  but  be  regarded  as  per- 
fectly conclusive  of  two  points :  First,  that  Abraham,  and  the 
heirs  with  him  of  the  same  promise,  did  understand  and  believe 
that  the  inheritance  secured  to  them  under  the  promise  of 
Canaan  (for  that  was  the  only  word  spoken  to  them  of  an 
inheritance)  was  one  in  whicn  they  had  a  personal  interest. 
And  then,  secondly,  that  the  inheritance,  as  it  was  to  be 
occupied  and  enjoyed  by  them,  was  to  be,  not  a  temporary,  but 
a  final  one, — one  that  might  fitly  be  designated  a  "  heavenly 
country,"  a  city  built  by  divine  hands,  and  based  on  immovable 
foundations, — in  short,  the  ultimate  and  proper  resting-place 
of  redeemed  and  glorified  natures.  This  was  what  these  holy 
patriarchs  expected  and  desired, — what  they  were  warranted 
to  expect  and  desire ; — for  their  conduct  in  this  respect  is  the 
subject  of  commendation,  and  is  justified  on  the  special  ground, 
that  otherwise  God  must  have  been  ashamed  to  be  called  their 
God.  And,  finally,  it  was  what  they  found  contained  in  the 
promise  to  them,  of  an  inheritance  in  the  land  in  which  they 
were  pilgrims  and  strangers;  for  that  promise  alone  could 
they  look  for  the  special  ground  of  the  hopes  they  cherished  of 
a  sure  and  final  possession.1 

But  the  question  again  returns,  What  is  that  possession 
itself  really  to  be?  That  it  can  not  be  the  country  itself 
of  Palestine,  either  in  its  present  condition,  or  as  it  might 
become  under  any  system  of  culture  of  which  nature  is  capa- 
ble, is  too  obvious  to  require  any  lengthened  proof.  The 
twofold  fact,  that  the  possession  was  to  be  man's  ultimate 

'  Heb  xL  13-16. 

*  See  Appendix  B.  The  views  given  in  the  text  respecting  the  faith  and 
hope  of  Old  Testament  believers  are  beginning  now  (1869)  to  find  more  ac- 
ceptance in  Germany  than  was  the  case  about  twenty  years  ago,  when  the 
first  edition  of  this  work  was  published.  See  in  particular  Oebler's  article  in 
Herzog,  Suppl.  iii.,  Unsterblichkeit,  Lehre  des  A.  Testaments,  where  they  are 
substantially  set  forth;  also  Elostermann's  Untersuchungen  zur  altiest.  The- 
ologie,  in  which  the  hope  of  the  resurrection  is  endeavored  to  be  proved  from 
PH.  oxxxix.,  Ixxiii.,  and  xlix. 


846  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

and  proper  inheritance,  and  that  it  could  be  attained  only 
after  the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  clearly  forbids  the  sup- 
position of  its  being  the  literal  land  of  Canaan,  under  any 
conceivable  form  of  renovated  fruitfulness  and  beauty.  This 
is  also  evident  from  the  nature  of  the  promise  that  formed 
the  ground  of  Abraham's  hope, — which  made  mention  only 
of  the  land  of  Canaan, — and  which,  as  pointing  to  an  ulterior 
inheritance,  must  have  belonged  to  that  combination  of  type 
with  prophecy  which  we  placed  first,  viz.,  having  the  prom- 
ise, or  prediction,  not  in  the  language  employed,  but  in 
the  typical  character  of  the  object  which  that  language  de- 
scribed. The  promise  made  to  Abraham  was  simple  enough 
in  itself.  It  gave  assurance  of  a  land  distinctly  marked  off  by 
certain  geographical  boundaries.  It  was  not  properly  in  the 
words  of  that  promise  that  he  could  read  his  destiny  to  any 
future  and  ultimate  inheritance ;  but  putting  together  the  two 
things,  that  the  promised  good  could  be  only  realized  fully  in 
an  after-state  of  being,  and  that  all  the  relations  of  the  time 
then  present  were  preparative  and  temporary  representations 
of  better  things  to  come,  he  might  hence  perceive  that  the 
earthly  Canaan  was  a  type  of  what  was  finally  to  be  enjoyed. 
Thus  the  establishment  of  his  offspring  there  would  oe  re- 
garded as  a  prophecy,  in  fact,  of  the  exaltation  of  the  whole 
of  an  elect  seed  to  their  destined  state  of  blessing  and  glory. 
But  such  being  the  case— the  prediction  standing  altogether 
in  the  type — the  thing  predicted  and  promised  must,  in  con- 
formity with  all  typical  relations,  have  been  another  and  far 
higher  thing  than  that  which  served  to  predict  and  promise 
it.  Canaan  could  not  be  the  type  of  itself:  it  could  only  rep- 
resent, on  the  lower  platform  of  nature,  what  was  hereafter 
to  be  developed  on  the  loftier  arena  of  God's  everlasting  king- 
dom ;  and  as  far  as  the  things  of  fallen  and  corrupt  nature 
differ  from,  and  are  inferior  to,  those  of  redemption,  so  far 
must  the  rest  of  Canaan  have  differed  from,  and  been  infe- 
rior to,  "  that  rest  which  remaineth  for  the  people  of  God."  * 
What  that  final  rest  or  inheritance,  which  forms  the  anti- 
type to  Canaan,  really  is,  we  may  gather  from  the  words  of 
the  apostle  concerning  it  in  Eph.  L  14,  where  he  calls  the 
Spirit  "  the  earnest  of  our  inheritance,  until  the  redemption 
oi  the  purchased  possession."  *  It  is  plain  that  the  subject 

•  See  Appendix  D. 

*  That  the  received  translation  gives  here  the  sense  of  the  original  with 
substantial   correctness,   I  am  fully  satisfied.     The   latter  part  of  it,    eft 
dito&i'rpcoGty  riff  itspntotijtiEODS,  has  been  variously  understood,  and  its 
natural  import  too  commonly  overlooked.     Robinson,  in  his  Lexicon,  makes 
i\f=.dico\vrpto6i'y  TTJY  iceptitosijBsKSa.vy  the  redemption  acquired  for  us, — 
%  violent  change,  which  could  only  be  justified  if  absolutely  necessary.    Th« 


THE  DESTINED  INHEKITANCE.  34? 

here  discoursed  of  is  not  our  persons,  but  our  goods;  not 
what  believers  in  their  souls  and  bodies  are  to  be  hereafter, 
but  what  is  prepared  for  their  enjoyment.  For  the  inherit- 
ance  which  belongs  to  a  person  must  always  be  separate 
from  the  person  himself.  And  as  that  which  is  called  an  in- 
heritance in  the  one  clause  is  undoubtedly  the  same  with 
that  which  in  the  other  is  named  a  possession,  purchased  or 
acquired,  but  not  yet  redeemed,  the  redemption  of  the  pos- 
session must  be  a  work  to  be  accomplished  for  us,  and  not 
to  be  wrought  in  us.  It  must  be  a  change  to  the  better,  ef- 
fected not  upon  our  persons,  but  upon  the  outward  provision 
secured  for  their  ulterior  happiness  and  well-being. 

It  is  true  that  the  Church  of  God,  the  company  of  sound 
and  genuine  believers,  is  sometimes  called  the  inheritance  or 
purchased  possession  of  God.  In  Old  Testament  Scripture 
His  people  are  styled  His  "heritage,"  "  His  treasure ";  and 
in  New  Testament  Scripture  we  find  St.  Peter  addressing 
them  as  "  a  peculiar  people,"  or  literally,  a  people  for  a  pos- 
session— namely,  a  possession  of  God,  acquired  or  purchased 

only  two  senses  in  which  the  word  occurs  in  the  New  Testament,  are — 1.  Ao- 
quiring,  acquisition,  obtaining,  1  Thess.  v.  9;  2  Thess.  ii.  14;  Heb.  x.  39; 
2.  The  thing  obtained  or  acquired,  possession,  in  which  sense  unquestionably, 
it  is  used  in  Mai.  iii.  17,  and  in  1  Pet.  ii.  9.  In  both  of  these  places  it  is  applied 
to  the  Church,  as  God's  acquired,  purchased  possession,  and  is  equal  to  Hia 

Eeculiuin,  or  property  in  the  stricter  sense,  His  select  treasure,  which  is  re- 
ited  to  Him  as  nothing  else  is,  which  He  has  acquired  or  purchased,  nepts- 
itoiTn6a.ro,  by  His  own  blood:  Acts  xx.  28,  comp.  also  Ex.  xix.  6;  Deut.  vii 
6;  Tit.  ii.  14.  The  great  majority  of  interpreters,  from  Calvin  to  Ellicott,  are 
of  opinion,  that  because  in  these  passages  itspntoii/GiS  is  used  as  a  designa- 
tion of  the  Church,  considered  as  God's  peculiar  property,  it  has  the  same 
meaning  here,  "unto,  or  until,  the  redemption  of  His  purchased  people,"  as 
Boothroyd  expressly  renders.  But  this  view  is  liable  to  three  objections.  L 
The  word  itepiitoirjtiiS  is  nowhere  absolutely  and  by  itself  put  for  "pur- 
chased people,"  or  "  Church  ";  when  so  used,  it  has  the  addition  of  Aao?.  2. 
The  redemption  of  the  Church  would  then  be  regarded  as  future,  whereas  it 
is  always  represented  as  past  We  read  of  the  redemption  of  the  bodies  of 
believers  as  yet  to  take  place,  but  never  of  the  redemption  of  the  Church;  that 
is  uniformly  spoken  of  as  having  been  effected  by  the  death  of  Christ  3.  It 
does  not  suit  the  connection :  for  the  apostle  is  speaking  of  the  indwelling  of 
the  Spirit  as  the  earnest  of  the  inheritance  to  which  believers  are  destined; 
and  as  an  earnest  is  given  as  a  temporary  substitute  for  the  inheritance  or 
possession,  the  term  to  which,  or  the  end  in  respect  to  which  it  is  given, 
must  be,  not  some  other  event  of  a  collateral  nature,  but  the  coming  or  receiv- 
ing of  the  possession  itself.  Then,  while  these  objections  apply  to  the  common 
view,  there  is  no  need  for  resorting  to  it:  while  it  does  violence  to  the  word, 
it  only  obscures  the  sense.  E/S  it£pntoi^6iv ,  both  (Ecumenius  and  Theo- 
phylact,  on  1  Pet.  ii.  9,  hold  to  be  f^s  KTrj6iv,  e/S  j<Xrjpovofiiavy  for  a  pos- 
session, for  an  inheritance.  And  Didymus  on  the  same  place,  as  quoted  by 
Steiger,  says,  "that  is  ic£pntoirj6i^,  which,  by  way  of  distinction,  is  reck- 
oned among  our  substance  and  possessions."  Therefore  the  correct  mean- 
ing here  is  that  given  by  Calov:  "  nspinoh/tii?,  the  abstract  being  placed 
for  the  concrete,  is  to  be  understood  of  the  acquired  inheritance,  for  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  the  pledge  and  earnest  until  the  full  redemption  of  the  acquired 
Inheritance." 


848  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

by  the  precious  blood  of  His  dear  Son.  The  question  here, 
however,  is  not  of  what  may  be  called  God's  inheritance,  but 
of  ours ;  not  of  our  redemption  from  the  bondage  of  evil  as 
a  possession  of  God,  which  He  seeks  to  enjoy  free  from  all 
evil,  but  of  that  which  we  are  ourselves  to  possess  and  occu- 
py as  our  final  portion.  And  as  we  could  with  no  propriety 
be  called  our  own  inheritance,  or  our  own  possession,  it  must 
be  something  apart  from,  and  out  of,  ourselves,  which  is  here 
to  be  understood, — not  a  state  of  being  to  be  held,  but  a  por- 
tion of  blessing  and  glory  to  be  enjoyed. 

Now,  whatever  the  inheritance  or  possession  may  be  in  it- 
self, and  whatever  the  region  where  it  is  to  be  enjoyed,  when 
it  is  spoken  of  as  needing  to  be  redeemed,  we  are  evidently 
taught  to  regard  it  as  something  that  has  been  alienated  from 
us,  but  is  again  to  be  made  ours ;  not  a  possession  altogether 
new,  but  an  old  possession,  lost,  and  again  to  be  reclaimed 
from  the  powers  of  evil,  which  now  overmaster  and  destroy 
it.  So  was  it  certainly  with  our  persons.  They  were  sold 
under  sin.  With  our  loss  of  righteousness  before  God,  we 
lost  at  the  same  time  our  spiritual  freedom,  and  all  that  es- 
sentially belonged  to  the  pure  and  blessed  life,  in  the  posses- 
sion of  which  we  were  created.  Instead  of  this,  we  became 
subject  to  the  tyrannous  dominion  of  the  prince  of  darkness, 
holding  us  captive  in  our  souls  to  the  foul  and  wretched  bon- 
dage of  sin,  and  in  our  bodies  to  the  mortality  and  corrup- 
tion of  death.  The  redemption  of  our  persons  is  just  their 
recovery  from  this  lost  and  ruinous  state,  to  the  freedom  of 
God's  children,  and  the  blessedness  of  immortal  life  in  His 
presence  and  glory.  It  proceeds  at  every  step  by  acts  of 
judgment  upon  the  great  adversary  and  oppressor,  who  took 
advantage  of  the  evil,  and  ever  seeks  to  drive  it  to  the  utter- 
most. And  when  the  work  shall  be  completed  by  the  re- 
demption of  the  body  from  the  power  of  the  grave,  there  shall 
then  be  the  breaking  up  of  the  last  bond  of  oppression  that 
lay  upon  our  natures, — the  putting  down  of  the  last  enemy, 
that  the  son  of  wickedness  may  no  longer  vex  or  injure  us. 

In  this  redemption-process,  which  is  already  begun  upon 
the  people  of  God,  and  shall  be  consummated  in  the  glories 
of  the  resurrection,  it  is  the  same  persons,  the  same  soul  and 
body,  which  have  experience  both  of  the  evil  and  of  the  good. 
Though  the  change  is  so  great  and  wonderful  that  it  is  some- 
times called  a  new  creation,  it  is  not  in  the  sense  of  any  thing 
being  brought  into  existence,  which  previously  had  no  being. 
Such  language  is  simply  used  on  account  of  the  happy  and 
glorious  transformation  that  is  made  to  pass  upon  the  natures 
which  already  exist,  but  exist  only  in  a  state  of  misery  and 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE. 

oppression.  And  when  the  same  language  is  applied  t& 
inheritance  which  is  used  of  the  persons  of  those  who  are  to 
enjoy  it,  what  can  this  indicate  but  that  the  same  thiugs  au 
true  concerning  it  ?  The  bringing  in  of  that  inheritance,  in 
its  finished  state  of  fulness  and  glory,  is  in  like  manner  called 
"the  making  of  all  things  new";  but  it  is  so  called  only  in 
respect  to  the  wonderful  transformation  which  is  to  be  wrought 
urjon  the  old  things,  which  are  thereby  to  receive  another  con- 
stitution, and  present  another  aspect,  than  they  were  wont 
to  do  before.  For  that  the  possession  is  to  be  redeemed,  be- 
speaks it  as  a  thing  to  be  recovered,  not  to  be  made, — a  thing 
already  in  being,  though  so  changed  from  its  original  desti- 
nation, so  marred  and  spoiled,  overlaid  with  so  many  foi-ms 
of  evil,  and  so  far  from  serving  the  ends  for  which  it  is  re- 
quired, that  it  may  be  said  to  be  alienated  from  us,  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemy,  for  the  prosecution  of  his  purposes  of  evril. 

Now,  what  is  it,  of  which  this  can  be  affirmed  ?  If  it  is 
said  heaven, — and  by  that  is  meant  what  is  commonly  under- 
stood, some  region  far  removed  from  this  lower  world,  in  the 
sightless  realms  of  ether, — then  we  ask,  was  heaven  in  that 
sense  ever  man's?  Has  it  become  obnoxious  to  any  evils, 
from  which  it  must  be  delivered?  or  has  it  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  an  enemy  and  an  oppressor,  from  whose  evil  sway 
it  must  again  be  redeemed?  None  of  these  things  surely 
can  be  said  of  such  a  heaven.  It  would  be  an  altogether 
new  inheritance,  a  possession  never  held,  consequently  never 
lost,  and  incapable  of  being  redeemed.  And  there  is  noth- 
ing that  answers  such  a  description,  or  can  possibly  realize 
the  conditions  of  such  an  inheritance,  but  what  lies  within 
the  bounds  and  compass  of  this  earth  itself,  with  which  the 
history  of  man  has  hitherto  been  connected  both  in  good  and 
evil,  and  where  all  the  possession  is  that  he  can  properly  be 
said  either  to  have  held  or  to  have  lost. 

Let  us  again  recur  to  the  past.  Man's  original  inherit- 
ance was  a  lordship  or  dominion,  stretching  over  the  whole 
earth,  but  extending  no  farther.  It  entitled  him  to  the  min- 
istry of  all  creatures  within  its  borders,  and  the  enjoyment 
of  all  fruits  and  productions  upon  its  surface — one  only  ex- 
cepted,  for  the  trial  of  his  obedience.1  When  he  fell,  he  fell 
from  his  dominion,  as  well  as  from  his  purity;  the  inherit- 
ance departed  from  him ;  he  was  driven  from  paradise,  the 
throne  and  palace  of  his  kingdom ;  labor,  servitude,  and  suf- 
fering, became  his  portion  in  the  world ;  he  was  doomed  to 
be  a  bondsman,  a  hewer  of  wood  and  drawer  of  water,  on 

>  Gen.  i  28-31;  Pa.  -nil 


850  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUKE. 

what  was  formed  to  be  his  inheritance ;  and  all  that  he  has 
since  been  able,  by  hard  toil  and  industry,  to  acquire,  is  but 
a  partial  and  temporary  command  over  some  fragments  of 
what  was  at  first  all  his  own.  Nor  is  that  the  whole.  For 
with  man's  loss  of  the  inheritance,  Satan  was  permitted  to 
enter,  and  extend  his  usurped  sway  over  the  domain  from 
which  man  has  been  expelled  as  its  proper  lord.  And  this 
he  does  by  filling  the  world  with  agencies  and  works  of  evil, 
— spreading  disorder  through  the  elements  of  nature,  and  dis- 
affection among  the  several  ranks  of  being, — above  all,  cor- 
rupting the  minds  of  men,  so  as  to  lead  them  to  cast  off  the 
authority  of  God,  and  to  use  the  things  he  confers  on  them 
for  their  own  selfish  ends  and  purposes,  for  the  injury  and 
oppression  of  their  fellow-men,  for  the  encouragement  of  sin 
and  suppression  of  the  truth  of  God, — for  rendering  the  world, 
in  short,  as  far  as  possible,  a  region  of  darkness  and  not  of 
light,  a  kingdom  of  Satan  and  not  of  God,  a  theatre  of  mal- 
ice, corruption,  and  disorder,  not  of  love,  harmony,  and  bless- 
edness. 

Now,  as  the  redemption  of  man's  person  consists  in  his  be- 
ing rescued  from  the  dominion  of  Satan — from  the  power  of 
sin  in  his  soul,  and  from  the  reign  of  death  in  his  body,  which 
are  the  two  forms  of  Satan's  dominion  over  man's  nature; 
what  can  the  redemption  of  the  inheritance  be  but  the  rescu- 
ing of  this  earth  from  the  manifold  ills  which,  through  the 
instrumentality  of  Satan,  have  come  to  lodge  in  his  bosom, — 
purging  its  elements  of  all  mischief  and  disorder, — changing 
it  from  being  the  vale  of  tears  and  the  charnel-house  of  death, 
into  a  paradise  of  life  and  blessing, — restoring  to  man,  him- 
self then  redeemed  and  fitted  for  the  honor,  the  sceptre  of 
a  real  dominion  over  all  its  fulness, — in  a  word,  rendering  it 
in  character  and  design  what  it  was  on  creation's  morn,  when 
the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy,  and  God  Himself  looked  with 
satisfaction  on  the  goodness  and  order  and  beauty  which 
pervaded  this  portion  of  His  universe  ?  To  do  sucn  a  work 
as  this  upon  tne  earth,  would  manifestly  be  to  redeem  the 
possession  which  man  by  disobedience  forfeited  and  lost,  and 
a  new  title  to  which  has  been  purchased  by  Christ  for  all 
His  spiritual  seed;  for  were  that  done,  the  enemy  would  be 
completely  foiled  and  cast  out,  and  man's  proper  inheritance 
restored. 

But  some  are  perhaps  ready  to  ask,  Is  that,  then,  aU  the 
inheritance  that  the  redeemed  have  to  look  for?  Is  their 
abode  still  to  be  upon  earth,  and  their  portion  of  good  to  be 
confined  to  what  may  be  derived  from  its  material  joys  and 
occupations  ?  Is  paradise  restored  to  be  simply  the  re-estab- 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  351 

lishment  and  enlargement  of  paradise  lost  ?  We  might  reply- 
to  such  questions  by  putting  similar  ones  regarding  the  per- 
sons of  the  redeemed.  Are  these  still,  after  all,  to  be  the 
same  persons  they  were  during  the  days  of  their  sojourn 
on  earth?  Is  the  soul,  when  expatiating  amid  the  glorious 
scenes  of  eternity,  to  live  in  the  exercise  of  the  same  powers 
and  faculties  which  it  employed  on  the  things  of  time  ?  And 
is  the  outward  frame,  in  which  it  is  to  lodge,  and  act,  and 
enjoy  itself,  to  be  that  very  tabernacle  which  it  bore  here  in 
weakness,  and  which  it  left  behind  to  rot  and  perish  in  the 
tomb?  Would  any  one  feel  at  a  moment's  loss  to  answer 
such  questions  in  the  affirmative?  Does  it  in  any  respect 
shock  our  feeling,  or  lower  the  expectations  we  feel  warranted 
to  cherish  concerning  our  future  state,  when  we  think  that 
the  very  soul  and  body  which  together  constitute  and  make 
up  the  being  we  now  are,  shall  also  constitute  and  make  up 
tne  being  we  are  to  be  hereafter  ?  Assuredly  not ;  for  how- 
ever little  we  know  what  we  are  to  be  hereafter,  we  are  not 
left  in  ignorance  that  both  soul  and  body  shall  be  freed  from 
all  evil ;  and  not  only  so,  but  in  the  process  shall  be  unspeak- 
ably refined  and  elevated.  We  know  it  is  the  purpose  of 
God  to  magnify  in  us  the  riches  of  His  grace  by  raising  our 
natures  higher  than  the  fall  has  brought  them  low — to  glo- 
rify, while  He  redeems  them,  and  so  to  render  them  capable 
of  spheres  of  action  and  enjoyment  beyond  not  only  what  eye 
has  soen  or  ear  has  heard,  but  even  what  has  entered  into 
the  mind  of  man  to  conceive. 

And  why  may  we  not  think  and  reason  thus  also,  con- 
cerning the  inheritance  which  these  redeemed  natures  are  to 
occupy  ?  Why  may  not  God  do  a  like  work  of  purification 
and  refinement  on  this  solid  earth,  so  as  to  transform  and 
adapt  it  into  a  fit  residence  for  man  in  glory  ?  Why  may  not, 
why  should  not,  that  which  has  become  for  man,  as  fallen, 
the  house  of  bondage  and  the  field  of  ruin,  become  also 
for  man  redeemed  tin  habitation  of  peace  and  the  region  of 
pre-eminent  delight?  Surely  He,  who  from  the  very  stones 
can  raise  up  children  unto  Abraham,  and  who  iviU  bring 
forth  from  the  noisome  corruption  of  the  tomb,  forms  clothed 
with  honor  and  majesty,  can  equally  change  the  vile  and 
disordered  condition  of  the  world,  as  it  now  is,  and  make 
it  fit  to  be  "the  house  of  the  glory  of  His  kingdom," — a 
world  where  the  eye  of  redeemed  manhood  shall  be  regaled 
with  sights  of  surpassing  loveliness,  and  his  ear  ravished 
with  sounds  of  sweetest  melody,  and  his  desires  satisfied  with 
purest  delight, — ay,  a  world,  it  may  be,  which,  as  it  alone  of 
all  creation  s  orbs  has  been  honored  to  bear  the  footsteps  of 


352  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

an  incarnate  God,  and  witness  the  performance  of  His  noblest 
work,  so  may  it  also  become  the  region  around  which  He 
will  pour  the  richest  manifestations  of  His  glorious  presence, 
and  possibly  send  from  it,  by  the  ministry  of  His  redeemed, 
communications  of  love  and  kindness  to  the  farthest  bounds 
of  His  habitable  universe  ! 

No ;  when  rightly  considered,  it  is  not  a  low  and  degrad- 
ing view  of  the  inheritance  which  is  reserved  for  the  heirs  of 
salvation,  to  place  it  in  the  possession  of  this  very  earth 
which  we  now  inhabit,  after  it  shall  have  been  redeemed  and 
glorified.  I  feel  it  for  myself  to  be  rather  an  ennobling  and 
comforting  thought ;  and  were  I  left  to  choose,  out  of  all  crea- 
tion's bounds,  the  place  where  my  redeemed  nature  is  to  find 
its  local  habitation,  enjoy  its  Redeemer's  presence,  and  reap 
the  fruits  of  His  costly  purchase,  I  would  prefer  none  to  this. 
For  if  destined  to  so  high  a  purpose,  I  know  it  will  be  made 
in  all  respects  what  it  should  be — the  paradise  of  delight, 
the  very  neaven  of  glory  and  blessing,  which  I  desire  and 
need.  And  then  the  connection  between  what  it  now  is, 
and  what  it  shall  have  become,  must  impart  to  it  an  interest 
which  can  belong  to  no  other  region  in  the  universe.  If 
any  thing  could  enhance  our  exaltation  to  the  lordship  of  a 
glorious  and  blessed  inheritance,  it  would  surely  be  the  feel- 
ing of  possessing  it  in  the  very  place  where  we  were  once 
miserable  bondmen  of  sin  and  corruption.  And  if  any  thing 
should  dispose  us  to  bear  meekly  our  present  heritage  of  evil, 
to  quicken  our  aspirations  after  the  period  of  deliverance, 
and  to  raise  our  affections  above  the  vain  and  perishable 
things  around  us,  it  should  be  the  thought  that  all  we  can 
now  either  have  or  experience  from  the  world  is  part  of  a 
possession  forfeited  and  accursed,  but  that  it  only  waits  for 
the  transforming  power  of  God  to  be  changed  into  the  inherit- 
ance of  the  saints  in  light,  when  heaven  and  earth  shall  be 
mingled  into  one. 

But  if  this  renovated  earth  is  to  be  itself  the  inheritance 
of  the  redeemed, — if  it,  in  the  first  instance  at  least,  is  to  be 
the  heaven  where  they  are  to  reap  life  everlasting,  how,  it 
may  be  asked,  can  heaven  be  spoken  of  as  above  us,  and  rep- 
resented as  the  higher  region  of  God's  presence  ?  Such  lan- 
guage is  never,  that  we  are  aware  of,  used  in  Scripture  to 
denote  the  final  dwelling-place  of  God's  people;  and  if  it 
were  used  there,  as  it  often  is  in  popular  discourse,  it  would 
need,  of  course,  to  be  understood  with  that  limitation  which 
requires  to  be  put  upon  all  our  more  definite  descriptions  of 
a  future  world.  To  regard  expressions  of  the  kind  referred 
to,  as  determining  our  final  abode  to  be  over  our  heads,  were 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  868 

to  betray  a  childish  ignorance  of  the  fact,  that  what  is  such 
by  day,  is  the  reverse  of  what  is  so  by  night.  Such  language 
properly  denotes  the  superior  nature  of  the  heavenly  inherit- 
ance, and  not  its  relative  position.  God  can  make  any  region 
of  His  universe  a  heaven,  since  heaven  is  there  where  He 
manifests  His  presence  and  glory;  and  why  might  He  not 
do  so  here,  as  well  as  in  any  other  part  of  creation  ? — But  is 
it  not  said  that  the  kingdom  in  which  the  redeemed  are  to 
live  and  reign  forever  was  prepared  for  them  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world;  and  how,  then,  can  the  scene  of  it 
be  placed  on  this  earth,  still  waiting  to  be  redeemed  for  the 
purpose?  The  preparation  there  meant,  however,  can  not 
possibly  be  an  actual  fitting  up  of  the  place  which  believers 
are  to  occupy  with  their  Lord ;  for  wherever  it  is,  the  apostle 
tells  us  it  still  needs  to  be  redeemed :  in  that  sense  it  is  not 
yet  ready;  and  Christ  Himself  said,  when  on  the  eve  of  leav- 
ing the  world,  that  He  was  going  to  prepare  it,  as  He  does 
by  directing,  on  His  throne  of  glory,  the  events  which  are  to 
issue  in  its  lull  establishment.  Still,  from  the  first  it  might  be 
said  to  be  prepared,  because  destined  for  Christ  and  His  elect 
people  in  the  mind  of  God,  even  as  they  were  all  chosen  in 
Him  before  the  foundation  of  the  world;  and  every  succes- 
sive act  in  the  history  of  the  mediatorial  kingdom  is  another 
step  toward  the  accomplishment  of  the  purpose. — Are  we  not 
again  told,  however,  that  the  earth  is  to  be  destroyed,  its 
elements  made  to  melt  with  fervent  heat,  and  all  its  works 
consumed  ?  Unquestionably  this  is  said,  though  not  by  any 
means  necessarily  implying  that  the  earth  is  really  to  be  anni- 
hilated. We  know  that  God  is  perpetually  causing  changes 
to  pass  over  the  works  of  His  hands;  but  that  He  actually 
annihilates  any,  we  have  no  ground,  either  in  nature  or  in 
Scripture,  to  suppose.  If  in  the  latter,  we  are  told  of  man's 
body,  that  it  perishes,  and  is  consumed  by  the  moth;  yet 
of  what  are  we  more  distinctly  assured,  than  that  it  is  not 
doomed  to  absolute  destruction,  but  shall  live  again  ?  When 
we  read  of  the  old  world  being  destroyed  by  the  flood,  we 
know  that,  the  material  fabric  of  the  earth  continued  as  before. 
Indeed,  much  the  same  language  that  is  applied  to  the  earth 
in  this  respect,  is  also  extended  to  the  heavens  themselves ; 
for  they  too  are  represented  as  ready  to  pass  away,  and  to  be 
changed  as  a  vesture,  and  the  promise  speaks  of  new  heavens 
as  well  as  a  new  earth.  And  in  regard  to  this  earth  in  par- 
ticular, there  is  nothing  in  the  language  used  concerning  it 
to  prevent  us  from  believing  that  the  fire  which,  in  the  day 
of  God's  judgment,  is  to  burst  forth  with  consuming  violence, 
may,  like  the  waters  of  the  deluge,  and  in  a  far  higher  respect 
VOL. 


354  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

than  they,  act  as  an  element  of  purification, — dissolving,  in- 
deed, the  present  constitution  of  things,  and  leaving  not  a 
wreck  behind  of  all  we  now  see  and  handle,  but  at  the  same 
time  rectifying  and  improving  the  powers  of  nature,  refining 
and  elevating  the  whole  framework  of  the  earth,  and  impress- 
ing on  all  that  belongs  to  it  a  transcendent,  imperishable 
glory;  so  that,  in  condition  and  appearance,  it  shall  be  sub- 
stantially a  new  world,  and  one  as  far  above  what  it  now  is 
as  heaven  is  above  the  earth. 

There  is  nothing,  then,  in  the  other  representations  of 
Scripture  which  appears,  when  fairly  considered,  to  raise 
anv  valid  objection  against  the  renovated  earth  being  the 
ultimate  inheritance  of  the  heirs  of  promise.  And  there  is 
much  to  shut  us  up  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  so.  We  have 
enlarged  on  one  testimony  of  inspiration,  not  because  it  is 
the  only  or  the  chief  one  on  the  subject,  but  because  it  is  so 
explicit,  that  it  seems  decisive  of  the  question.  For  an  in- 
heritance which  has  been  already  acquired  or  purchased,  but 
which  must  be  redeemed  before  it  can  really  T>e  our  posses- 
sion, can  be  understood  of  nothing  but  that  orignal  domain 
which  sin  brought,  together  with  man,  into  the  bondage  of 
evil  at  the  fall.  And  of  what  else  can  we  understand  the 
representation  in  the  8th  Psalm,  as  interpreted  by  the  pen  of 
inspiration  itself,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  ii.  5-9,  and 
in  1  Cor.  xv.  27,  28  ?  These  passages  in  the  New  Testament 
put  it  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  idea  of  perfect  and  universal 
dominion  delineated  in  the  Psalm,  is  to  be  realized  in  the 
world  to  come,  over  which  Christ,  as  the  head  of  redeemed 
humanity,  is  to  rule,  in  company  with  His  redeemed  people. 
The  representation  itself  in  the  Psalm  is  evidently  borrowed 
from  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  and,  considered  as  a  proph- 
ecy of  good  things  to  come,  or  a  prediction  of  the  dignity 
and  honor  already  obtained  for  man  in  Christ,  and  here- 
after to  be  revealed,  it  may  be  regarded  as  simply  presenting 
to  our  view  the  picture  of  a  restored  and  renovated  creation. 
"  It  is  just  that  passage  in  Genesis  which  describes  the  origi- 
nal condition  of  the  earth,"  to  use  the  words  of  Hengstenberg, 
"  turned  into  a  prayer  for  us,"  and  we  may  add,  into  an  object 
of  hope  and  expectation.  When  that  prayer  is  fulfilled, — in 
other  words,  when  the  natural  and  moral  evils  entailed  by  the 
fall  have  been  abolished,  and  the  earth  shall  stand  to  man, 
Avhen  redeemed  and  glorified,  in  a  similar  relation  to  what  it 
did  at  the  birth  of  creation, — then  shall  the  hope  we  now  pos- 
sess of  an  inheritance  of  glory  be  turned  into  enjoyment.  In 
Isa.  xi.  6-9,  the  final  results  of  Messiah's  reign  are  in  like 
manner  delineated  under  the  aspect  of  a  world  which  has 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  855 

obtained  riddance  of  all  the  disorders  introduced  by  sin,  and 
is  restored  to  the  blessed  harmony  and  peace  which  char- 
acterized it  when  God  pronounced  it  very  good.  And  still 
more  definitely,  though  with  reference  to  the  same  aspect 
of  things,  the  apostle  Peter1  represents  the  time  of  Christ's 
second  coming  as  "  the  time  of  the  restitution  of  all  things," 
— the  time  when  every  thing  shall  be  restored  to  its  pristine 
condition,  made  as  at  first  all  pure  and  good,  a  true  theatre 
of  life  and  blessing,  only  higher  in  degree,  as  it  is  the  design 
and  tendency  of  redemption  to  ennoble  whatsoever  it  touches.* 

It  is  precisely  on  the  same  object,  a  redeemed  and  glorified 
earth,  that  the  apostle  Paul,  in  the  8th  chapter  of  the  Romans, 
fixes  the  mind  of  believers  as  the  terminating  point  of  their 
hopes  of  glory.  An  incomparable  glory  is  to  Be  revealed  in 
them;  and  in  connection  with  that,  "the  deliverance  of  a 
suffering  creation  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God."  What  can  this  deliver- 
ance be,  but  what  is  marked  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians, 
as  "  the  redemption  of  the  purchased  possession  ?  "  Nor  is  it 
possible  to  connect  with  any  thing  else  the  words  of  Peter  in 
his  second  Epistle,  where,  after  speaking  of  the  dreadful  con- 
flagration which  is  to  consume  all  that  belongs  to  the  earth 
in  its  present  form,  he  adds, — as  if  expressly  to  guard  against 
supposing  that  he  meant  the  actual  and  entire  destruction  of 
this  world  as  the  abode  of  man, — "  Nevertheless  we,  accord- 
ing to  His  promise,  look  for  new  heavens,  and  a  new  earth, 
wherein  dwelleth  righteousness." 

It  is  only  by  understanding  the  words  of  Christ  Himself, 
"  The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth,"  of  the  earth  in  that  new 
condition,  its  state  of  blessedness  and  glory,  that  any  fall  or 
adequate  sense  can  be  attached  to  them.  He  could  not  surely 
mean  the  earth  as  it  then  was,  or  as  it  is  to  be  during  any 
peiiod  of  its  existence,  while  sin  and  death  reign  in  it  So 
long  as  it  is  in  that  condition,  not  only  will  the  saints  of  God 
have  many  things  to  suffer  in  it,  as  our  Lord  immediately 
foretold,  when  He  spake  of  the  persecutions  for  righteous- 
ness' sake  which  His  people  should  have  to  endure,  and  on 
account  of  which  He  bade  them  look  for  their  "  reward  in 
heaven  " ;  but  all  the  treasure  it  contains  must  be  of  the  moth- 
eaten,  perishable  kind,  which  they  are  expressly  forbidden  to 

i  Acts  iii.  21. 

*  That  this  is  simply  the  force  of  the  original  here,  it  may  be  enough  to 
give  the  meaning  of  the  main  word  from  the  lexicographer  Hesychius: 
ant  OKO.T  0.6x0.61$  "is  the  restoration  of  a  thing  to  its  former  state,  or  to  » 
better;  restitution,  consummation,  a  revolution  of  the  grander  kind,  from 
which  a  new  order  of  things  arises,  rest  after  turmoil" 


366  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

covet,  and  the  earth  itself  must  be  that  city  without  contin- 
uance, in  contrast  to  which  they  are  called  to  seek  one  to 
come.  To  speak,  therefore,  of  the  tendency  of  piety  in  gen- 
eral, and  of  a  mild  and  gracious  disposition  in  particular,  to 
secure  for  men  a  prosperous  and  happy  life  on  earth,  however 
true  in  itself,  is  to  reach  but  a  small  way  towards  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  promise,  that  they  shall  "  inherit  the  earth."  If 
it  could  even  command  for  them  the  whole  that  earth  now 
can  give,  would  Christ  on  that  account  have  called  them  bless- 
ed ?  Would  He  not  rather  have  warned  them  to  beware  of 
the  deceitfulness  of  riches,  and  the  abundance  of  honors  thus 
likely  to  flow  into  their  bosom  ?  To  be  blessed  in  the  earth 
as  an  inheritance,  must  import  that  the  earth  has  become  to 
them  a  real  and  proper  good,  such  as  it  shall  be  when  it  has 
been  transformed  into  a  fit  abode  for  redeemed  natures.  This 
view  is  also  confirmed,  and  apparently  rendered  as  clear  and 
certain  as  language  can  make  it,  by  the  representations  con- 
stantly given  oy  Christ  and  the  inspired  writers  of  His  return 
to  the  earth  and  manifestation  on  it  in  glory,  as  connected 
with  the  last  scenes  and  final  issues  of  His  kingdom.  When 
He  left  the  world,  it  was  as  a  man  going  into  a  far  country, 
from  which  He  was  to  come  again ; l  the  heaven  received  Him 
at  His  resurrection,  but  only  until  the  times  of  the  restitution 
of  all  things ; J  the  period  of  His  residence  within  the  veil,  is 
coincident  with  that  during  which  His  people  have  to  main- 
tain a  hidden  life,  and  is  to  be  followed  by  another,  in  which 
they  and  He  together  are  to  be  manifested  in  glory.*  And  in 
the  book  of  Revelation,  while  unquestionably  the  scenes  are 
described  in  figurative  language,  yet  when  exact  localities 
are  mentioned  as  the  places  where  the  scenes  are  to  be  real- 
ized, and  that  in  connection  with  a  plain  description  of  the 
condition  of  those  who  are  to  have  part  in  them,  we  are  com- 
pelled, by  all  the  ordinary  rules  of  composition,  to  regard 
such  localities  as  real  and  proper  habitations.  What,  then, 
can  we  make  of  the  ascription  of  praise  from  the  elders,  rep- 
resentatives of  a  redeemed  Church,  when  they  give  glory  to 
the  Messiah,  as  "  having  made  them  kings  and  priests  unto 
God,  and  they  shall  reign  with  Him  upon  the  earth  ? "  Or 
what  of  the  closing  scenes,  where  the  evangelist  sees  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  in  the  room  of  those  which  had  passed 
away,  and  a  new  Jerusalem  coming  down  out  of  heaven  to 
settle  on  the  renovated  earth,  and  the  tabernacle  of  God  fixed 
amongst  men?*  Granting  that  the  delineations  of  the  book 

•  Matt.  xxv.  14;  Luke  xix.  12;  John  xiv.  3.  »  Acts  iii  21. 
3  CoL  iii  4;  Heb.  ix.  28;  1  John  iii.  2;  Rev.  L  7. 

*  Bev.  v.  9,  10,  xxi.  1-6. 


THE  DESTINED  INHERITANCE.  357 

are  a  succession  of  pictures,  drawn  from  the  relations  of  things 
in  the  former  ages  of  the  world,  and  especially  under  the  Old 
Testament  economy,  and  that  the  fulfilment  to  be  looked  for  is 
not  as  of  a  literal  description,  but  as  of  a  symbolical  representa- 
tion, yet  there  must  be  certain  fixed  landmarks  as  to  time  and 
place,  persons  and  objects,  which,  in  their  natures  or  their 
names,  are  so  clearly  defined,  that  by  them  the  relation  of 
one  part  to  another  must  be  arranged  and  interpreted.  For 
example,  in  the  above  quotations,  we  can  not  doubt  who  are 
kings  and  priests,  or  with  whom  they  are  to  reign ;  and  it 
were  surely  strange,  if  there  could  be  any  doubt  of  the  thea- 
tre of  their  dominion,  when  it  is  so  expressly  denominated 
the  earth.  And  still  more  strange,  if,  when  heaven  and  earth 
are  mentioned  relatively  to  each  other,  and  the  scene  of  the 
Church's  future  glory  fixed  upon  the  latter  as  contradistin- 
guished from  the  former,  earth  should  yet  stand  for  heaven, 
and  not  for  itself.  Indeed,  the  most  striking  feature  in  the 
representations  of  the  Apocalypse  is  the  uniformity  with 
which  they  connect  the  higher  grade  of  blessing  with  earth, 
and  the  lower  with  the  world  of  spirits.  It  invariably  points 
to  a  double  stage  of  blessedness, — the  one  awaiting  believ- 
ers immediately  after  their  departure  out  of  this  life,  the 
other  what  they  are  to  receive  when  they  enter  the  New 
Jerusalem,  and  reign  with  Christ  in  glory.1  But  we  find  the 
same  in  our  Lord's  teaching,  as  when  He  said  to  the  thief  on 
the  cross,  "  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise,"  and 
yet  pointed  His  disciples  to  the  state  of  things  on  earth  after 
the  resurrection  for  their  highest  reward.*  And,  on  the 
whole,  we  are  forced  to  conclude  with  Usteri,  that  "  the  con- 
ception of  a  transference  of  the  perfected  kingdom  of  God 
into  the  heavens  is,  properly  speaking,  modern,  seeing  that, 
according  to  Paul  and  the  Apocalypse  (and,  he  might  also 
have  added,  Peter  and  Christ  Himself),  the  seat  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  is  the  earth,  inasmuch  as  that  likewise  partakes 
in  the  general  renovation."  * 

1  See  Hengstenberg  on  ch.  xx.  4,  5.  *  Matt.  xix.  28. 

3  The  above  passage  is  quoted  by  Tholuck,  on  Bom.  viii.  19,  who  himself 
there,  and  on  Heb.  ii.,  concurs  in  the  same  view.  He  also  states,  what  can 
not  be  denied,  that  it  is  the  view  which  has  been  adopted  by  the  greatest 
number  and  the  most  ancient  of  the  expositors,  amongst  whom  he  mentions, 
though  he  does  not  cite,  Chrysostom,  Theodoret,  Jerome,  Augustine,  Am- 
brose, Luther,  etc.  And  Rivet,  on  Gen.  viii.  22,  states  that  the  opinion 
which  maintains  only  a  change,  and  not  an  utter  destruction  of  the  world, 
has  most  supporters,  both  among  the  elder  and  the  more  recent  writers,  so 
that  it  may  be  called,  says  he,  "  the  common  one,  and  be  said  to  prevail  by 
the  number  of  its  adherents."  In  the  present  day,  the  opposite  opinion 
would  probably  be  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  by  much  the  most  common; 
and  the  view  here  set  forth  will  perhaps  by  some  be  eyed  with  jealousy,  if  not 


858  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SOBIPTUBE. 

Having  now  closed  OUT  investigation,  we  draw  the  fol- 
lowing conclusions  from  it. 

1.  The  earthly  Canaan  was  neither  designed  by  God,  nor 
from  the  first  was  it  understood  by  His  people  to  be  the  ulti- 
mate and  proper  inheritance  which  they  were  to  occupy; 
things  having  been   spoken  and  hoped  for  concerning  it 
which  plainly  could  not  be  realized  within  the  bounds  of 
Canaan. 

2.  The  inheritance  was  one  which  could  be  enjoyed  only 
by  those  who  had  become  the  children  of  the  resurrection, 
themselves  fully  redeemed  in  soul  and  body  from  all  the 
effects  and  consequences  of  sin, — made  more  glorious  and 
blessed,  indeed,  than  if  they  had  never  sinned,  because  con- 
condemned  as  novel    It  may  be  proper,  therefore,  to  give  a  few  quotations 
from  the  more  eminent  commentators.     Jerome,  on  Isa.  Ixv.  17,  quotes  Ps. 
cii.  26  and  27,  which  he  thinks  "clearly  demonstrates  that  the  perdition 
spoken  of  is  not  a  reducing  to  nothing,  but  a  change  to  the  better; "  and  hav- 
ing referred  to  what  Peter  says  of  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth,  he  re- 
marks that  the  apostle  "  does  not  say,  we  look  for  other  heavens  and  another 
earth,  but  for  the  old  and  original  ones  transformed  into  a  better  state."    Of 
the  fathers  generally,  as  of  Justin  Martyr  in  particular,  Semisch  states  that 
they  regarded  the  future  destruction  of  the  world  by  fire  "far  more  frequently 
as  a  transformation  than  as  an  annihilation." — (Life  and  Times  of  Justin,  Sib. 
Cab.,  vol.  xlii.  p.  366.)    Calvin,  while  he  discourages  minute  inquiries  and 
vain  speculations  regarding  the  future  state,  expresses  himself  with  confi- 
dence, on  Bom.  viii.  21,  as  to  this  world  being  the  destined  theatre  of  glory, 
and  considers  it  as  a  proof  of  the  incomparable  glory  to  which  the  sons  of 
God  are  to  be  raised,  that  the  lower  creation  is  to  be  renewed  for  the  purpose 
of  manifesting  and  ennobling  it,  just  as  the  disorders  and  troubles  of  creation 
have  testified  to  the  appalling  evil  of  our  sin.     So  also  Haldane,  as  little  in- 
clined to  the  fanciful  as  Calvin,  on  the  same  passage,  after  quoting  from  2 
Pet.  and  Rev.,  continues:  "The  destruction  of  the  substance  of  things  differs 
from  a  change  in  their  qualities.     When  metal  of  a  certain  shape  is  sub- 
jected to  fire,  it  is  destroyed  as  to  its  figure,  but  not  as  to  its  substance.     Thus 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  will  pass  through  the  fire,  but  only  that  they  may 
be  purified  and  come  forth  anew,  more  excellent  than  before.     This  hope — 
the  hope  of  deliverance — was  held  out  in  the  sentence  pronounced  on  man, 
for  in  the  doom  of  our  first  parents  the  divine  purpose  of  providing  a  de- 
liverer was  revealed.     We  know  not  the  circumstances  of  this  change,  how  it 
will  be  effected,  or  in  what  form  the  creation — those  new  heavens  and  that 
new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness,  suited  for  the  abode  of  the  sons 
of  God — shall  then  exist;  but  we  are  sure  it  shall  be  worthy  of  the  divine  wis- 
dom, although  at  present  beyond  our  comprehension."     To  the  same  effect 
Fuller,  in  his  Gospel  its  own  Witness,  ch.  v.     Thiersch  says  of  the  promise  to 
Abraham,  "Undoubtedly  it  pointed  to  a  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth,  not  in 
an  invisible  world  (  of  spirits.     Paradise  itself  had  been  upon  earth,  much 
more  should  the  earth  be  the  centre  of  the  world  to  come." — (History,  i.  p. 
20. )     See  Olshausen  also  on  Matt.  viii.     Mr.  Stuart,  in  his  work  on  Romans, 
expresses  his  strong  dissent  from  such  views,  on  the  ground  of  their  being 
opposed  to  the  declarations  of  Christ,  and  requiring  such  a  literal  interpreta- 
tion of  prophecy  as  would  lead  to  absurd  and  ridiculous  expectations  in  regard 
to  other  predictions.     We  can  perceive  no  contrariety,  however  to  any  dec- 
laration of  Christ  or  TTia  apostles;  and  the  other  predictions  he  refers  to  be- 
long to  quite  another  class,  and  do  not  require,  or  even  admit,  as  might  quite 
easily  be  shown,  of  a  strictly  literal  fulfilment. 


THE  DESTINED  INHEKITANCE.  359 

etituted  after  the  image  of  the  heavenlv  Adam.  And  as  the 
inheritance  must  correspond  with  the  inheritor,  it  can  only 
be  man's  original  possession  restored, — the  earth  redeemed 
from  the  curse  which  sin  brought  on  it,  and,  like  man  him- 
self, rendered  exceedingly  more  beautiful  and  glorious  than 
in  its  primeval  state, — tne  fit  abode  of  a  Church  made  like, 
in  all  its  members,  to  the  Son  of  God. 

3.  The  occupation  of  the  earthly  Canaan  by  the  natural 
seed  of  Abraham  was  a  type,  and  no  more  than  a  type,  of 
this  occupation  by  a  redeemed  Church  of  her  destined  in- 
heritance of  glory;  and  consequently  every  thing  concerning 
the  entrance  of  the  former  on  their  temporary  possession, 
was  ordered  so  as  to  represent  and  foreshadow  the  things 
which  belong  to  the  Church's  establishment  in  her  perma- 
nent possession.  Hence,  between  the  giving  of  the  promise, 
which,  though  it  did  not  terminate  in  the  land  of  Canaan, 
vet  included  that,  and  through  it  prospectively  exhibited  the 
oetter  inheritance,  a  series  of  important  events  intervened, 
which  are  capable  of  being  fully  and  properly  explained  in 
no  other  way  than  bv  means  of  their  typical  bearing  on  the 
things  hereafter  to  be  disclosed  respecting  that  better  in- 
Keritance.  If  we  ask,  why  did  the  heirs  of  promise  wander 
ibout.  so  long  as  pilgrims,  and  withdraw  to  a  foreign  region 
before  they  were  allowed  to  possess  the  land,  and  not  rather, 
like  a  modern  colony,  quietly  spread,  without  strife  or  blood- 
shed, over  its  surface,  till  the  whole  was  possessed?  Or, 
why  were  they  suffered  to  fall  under  the  dominion  of  a  for- 
eign power,  from  whose  cruel  oppression  they  needed  to  be 
redeemed,  with  terrible  executions  of  judgment  on  the  op- 
pressor, before  the  possession  could  be  theirs  ?  Or  why,  be- 
fore that  event  also,  should  they  have  been  put  under  the 
discipline  of  law,  having  the  covenant  of  oinai,  with  its 
strict  requirements  and  manifold  obligations  of  service,  su- 
peradded  to  the  covenant  of  grace  and  promise  ?  Or  why, 
again,  should  their  right  to  the  inheritance  itself  have  to  be 
vindicated  from  a  race  of  occupants  who  had  been  allowed 
for  a  time  to  keep  possession  of  it,  and  whose  multiplied 
abominations  had  so  polluted  it,  that  nothing  short  of  their 
extermination  could  render  it  a  fitting  abode  for  the  heirs  of 
promise  ?  The  full  and  satisfactory  answer  to  all  such  ques- 
tions can  only  be  given  by  viewing  the  whole  in  connection 
with  the  better  things  of  a  higher  dispensation, — as  the  first 
part  of  a  plan  which  was  to  have  its  counterpart  and  issue 
in  the  glories  of  a  redeemed  creation,  and  for  the  final  re- 
sults  of  which  the  Church  needed  to  be  prepared  by  stand- 
ing in  similar  relations,  and  passing  through  like  experi- 


560 


THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SOBIPTTJEE. 


ences,  in  regard  to  an  earthly  inheritance.  No  doubt,  with 
one  and  all  of  these  there  were  connected  reasons  and  re- 
sults for  the  time  then  present,  amply  sufficient  to  justify 
every  step  in  the  process,  when  considered  simply  by  itseli. 
But  it  is  only  when  we  take  the  whole  as  a  glass,  in  which 
to  see  mirrored  the  far  greater  things  which  from  the  first 
were  in  prospect,  that  we  can  get  a  comprehensive  view  of 
the  mind  of  God  in  appointing  them,  and  know  the  purposes 
which  He  chiefly  contemplated. 

For  example,  the  fact  of  Abraham  and  his  immediate  de- 
scendants being  appointed  to  wander  as  pilgrims  through  the 
land  of  Canaan,  without  being  allowed  to  occupy  any  part 
of  it  as  their  own  possession,  may  be  partly  explained^  though 
in  that  view  it  must  appear  somewhat  capricious,  by  its  being 
considered  as  a  trial  to  their  own  faith,  and  an  act  of  forbear- 
ance and  mercy  toward  the  original  possessors,  whose  in- 
iquities were  not  yet  full.  But  if  we  thus  find  grounds  of 
reason  to  explain  why  it  may  have  been  so  ordered,  when  we 
come  to  look  upon  the  things  which  happened  to  them,  as 
designed  to  image  other  things  which  were  afterwards  to 
characterize  the  relation  of  God's  people  to  a  higher  and  bet- 
ter inheritance,  we  see  it  was  even  necessary  that  those  trans- 
actions should  have  been  so  ordered,  and  that  it  would  have 
been  unsuitable  for  the  heirs  of  promise,  either  entering  at 
once  on  the  possession,  or  living  as  pilgrims  and  expectants, 
anywhere,  but  within  its  borders.  For  thus  alone  could  their 
experience  fitly  represent  the  case  of  God's  people  in  gospel 
times,  who  have  not  only  to  wait  long  for  the  redemption  of 
the  purchased  possession,  but  while  they  wait,  must  walk  up 
and  down  as  pilgrims  in  the  verv  region  which  they  are  here- 
after to  use  as  their  own,  when  it  shall  have  been  delivered 
from  the  powers  of  evil  who  now  hold  it  in  bondage,  and 
purged  from  their  abominations.  Hence,  if  they  know  aright 
their  relation  to  the  world  as  it  now  is,  and  their  calling  as  the 
heirs  of  promise,  they  must  sit  loose  to  the  things  of  earth,  even 
as  the  patriarchs  did  to  the  land  of  their  sojourn, — must  feel 
that  it  can  not  be  the  place  of  their  rest  so  long  as  it  is  pollut- 
ed, and  that  they  must  steadfastly  look  for  the  world  to  come  as 
their  proper  home  and  possession.  And  thus  also  the  whole 
series  of  transactions  which  took  place  between  the  confir- 
mation of  the  covenant  of  promise  with  Jacob,  and  the  actual 
possession  of  the  land  promised,  and  especially  of  course  the 
things  which  concerned  that  greatest  01  all  the  transactions, 
the  revelation  of  the  law  from  Sinai,  is  to  be  regarded  as  a 
delineation  in  the  type,  of  the  way  and  manner  in  which  the 
heirs  of  God  are  to  obtain  the  inheritance  of  the  purchased 


THE  DESTINED  INHEEITANCE.  361 

possession.  Meanwhile,  apart  from  these  later  transactions, 
there  are  two  important  lessons  which  the  Church  may  clearly 
gather  from  what  appears  in  the  first  heirs  of  promise,  and 
which  she  ought  never  to  lose  sight  of: — First,  that  the  inher 
itance,  come  when  and  how  it  may,  is  the  free  gift  of  God, 
bestowed  by  Him,  as  sovereign  lord  and  proprietor,  on  those 
whom  He  calls  to  the  fellowship  of  His  grace :  And,  second, 
that  the  hope  of  the  inheritance  must  exist  as  an  animating 
principle  in  their  hearts,  influencing  all  their  procedure. 
Their  spirit  and  character  must  be  such  as  become  those 
who  are  the  expectants  as  well  as  heirs  of  that  better  country, 
which  is  an  heavenly ;  nor  can  Christ  ever  be  truly  formed 
in  the  heart,  until  He  be  formed  as  "  the  hope  of  glory." l 

1  See  Appendix  E. 


APPENDIX    A. 

THE    OLD   TESTAMENT    IN   THE    NEW.— P.    108. 

I. THE    HISTORICAL    AND    DIDACTIC    PORTIONS. 

BESIDES  numberless  allusions  of  various  kinds  in  the  New  Testament  to 
the  Old,  there  are  somewhat  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  express  cita- 
tions in  the  writings  of  the  one  from  those  of  the  other.  These  citations  are 
of  unequal  length;  they  consist  often  of  a  single  clause,  but  sometimes  also 
extend  to  several  verses.  They  are  taken  indiscriminately  from  the  different 
parts  of  Old  Testament  Scripture;  though,  with  very  few  exceptions,  they  be- 
long to  the  five  books  of  Moses,  the  Psalms,  and  the  writings  of  the  prophets. 

Not  a  few  of  these  citations  from  the  Old  Testament  are  citations  of  the 
simplest  kind;  they  appear  merely  as  passages  quoted  in  their  plain  sense 
from  the  previously  existing  canon  of  Scripture.  Such,  for  example,  are  the 
passages  out  of  the  books  of  Moses,  with  which  our  Lord,  after  the  simple 
notification,  "It  is  written,"  thrice  met  the  assaults  of  the  tempter  in  the 
wilderness;  and  such  also  are  those  with  which  Stephen,  in  his  historical 
speech  before  the  Jewish  council,  sought,  through  appropriate  references  to 
the  past,  to  enlighten  the  minds  and  alarm  the  consciences  of  his  judges.  In 
examples  of  this  description,  there  is  nothing  that  can  be  said  to  wear  even 
the  semblance  of  a  difficulty,  unless  it  may  be  regarded  as  such,  that  occa- 
sionally a  slight  difference  appears  in  the  passages  as  quoted,  from  what  they 
are  as  they  stand  in  the  original  Scripture.  But  the  difference  is  never  more 
than  a  verbal  one;  the  sense  of  the  original  is  always  given  with  substantial 
correctness  by  the  inspired  writers  in  the  New  Testament;  and  so  far  as  the 
great  principles  of  interpretation  are  concerned,  there  is  no  need  for  dwelling 
on  a  matter  so  comparatively  minute. 

But  there  still  remains  a  considerable  variety  of  Old  Testament  passages, 
so  cited  in  the  New  as  plainly  to  involve  certain  principles  of  interpretation ; 
because  they  are  cited  as  grounds  of  inference  for  some  authoritative  conclu- 
sion, or  as  proofs  of  doctrine  respecting  something  connected  with  the  per- 
son, the  work,  or  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  And  on  the  supposition  of  the 
authors  of  the  New  Testament  being  inspired  teachers,  the  character  of  these 
citations  is  of  the  gravest  importance — first,  as  providing,  in  the  hermenen- 
iical  principles  they  involve,  a  test  to  some  extent  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
writers;  and  then  as  furnishing  in  those  principles  an  infallible  direction  for 
the  general  interpretation  of  ancient  Scripture.  For  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  manner  in  which  our  Lord  and  His  apostles  understood  and  applied 
the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  was  as  much  intended  to  throw  light 
generally  on  the  principles  of  interpretation,  as  to  administer  instruction  on 
the  specific  points,  for  the  sake  of  which  they  were  more  immediately  ap- 
pealed to.  What,  then,  is  the  kind  of  use  made  of  the  passages  in  question, 
and  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  explained  ?  Is  it  natural  and  proper  ?  Is 
there  nothing  strained,  nothing  paradoxical,  nothing  arbitrary  and  capricious, 
in  the  matter  ?  Does  it  altogether  commend  itself  to  our  understandings  and 
consciences  ?  It  will  readily  be  admitted  to  do  so  in  the  great  majority  of 
eases.  And  yet  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  are  certain  peculiarities  con- 


864  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCKIPTUBE. 

nected  with  the  treatment  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New,  which  are  very 
apt  to  stagger  inquirers  in  their  first  attention  to  the  subject.  Nay,  there  are 
real  difficulties  attaching  to  some  parts  of  it,  which  have  long  exercised  the 
ingenuity  of  the  ablest  interpreters,  and  of  which  no  satisfactory  solution  can 
be  given,  without  a  clear  and  comprehensive  insight  being  first  obtained  into 
the  connection  subsisting  between  the  preparatory  and  the  ultimate  things  in 
God's  kingdom. 

In  a  small  publication,  which  materially  contributed  to  the  solution  of 
some  of  these  difficulties,  issued  so  far  back  as  1824,  Olshausen  remarks  con- 
cerning the  use  made  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New  : — 

"This  has  been  for  all  more  recent  expositors  a  stone  of  stumbling,  over 
which  not  a  few  of  them  have  actually  fallen.  It  has  appeared  to  them  diffi- 
cult, and  even  impossible,  to  discover  a  proper  unity  and  connection  in  the 
constructions  put  upon  the  passages  by  the  New  Testament  writers,  or  to  refer 
them  to  rules  and  principles.  Without  being  able  to  refer  them  to  these,  they 
could  not  properly  justify  and  approve  of  them;  neither  could  they,  on  the 
other  hand,  altogether  disapprove  and  reject  them,  without  abandoning  every 
thing.  So  that,  in  explaining  the  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  which 
pointed  to  the  New,  and  again  explaining  the  passages  of  the  New  Testament 
which  expressly  referred  to  and  applied  the  Old,  expositors  for  the  most  part 
found  themselves  involved  in  the  greatest  difficulties,  and,  on  the  one  side 
or  the  other,  resorted  to  the  most  violent  expedients.  But  the  explanation 
of  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New  is  the  very  point  from  which  alone  all  ex- 
position that  listens  to  the  voice  of  divine  wisdom  must  set  out  For  we 
have  here  presented  to  us  the  sense  of  Holy  Scripture  as  understood  by  in- 
spired men  themselves,  and  are  furnished  with  the  true  key  of  knowledge."  ' 

It  is  more  especially,  however,  in  the  application  made  by  New  Testament 
writers  of  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament,  that  the  difficulties  in  ques- 
tion present  themselves.  Nor  are  they  by  any  means  of  one  kind  :  they  are 
marked  by  a  considerable  diversity;  and  the  passages  will  require  to  be  taken 
in  due  order  and  connection,  if  we  are  to  arrive  at  a  well-grounded  and  satis- 
factory view  of  the  subject.  This  is  what  we  mean  to  do.  But  as  there  are 
other  portions  of  Old  Testament  Scripture,  besides  the  prophecies,  referred 
to  and  quoted  in  the  New, — as  much  use  also  is  made  there  of  the  historical 
and  didactic  portions, — it  is  important,  in  the  first  instance,  to  notice  that 
this  use,  with  only  one  or  two  apparent,  and  no  real,  exceptions,  is  always 
of  a  quite  natural  and  unsophisticated  character;  free  from  any  ridiculous  or 
extravagant  conceits,  and  entirely  approving  itself  to  the  judgments  of  pro- 
found and  thoughtful  readers.  Such  readers,  indeed,  so  naturally  expect  it 
to  be  so,  that  they  scarcely  take  cognizance  of  the  fact,  or  ever  think  of  the 
possibility  of  its  having  been  otherwise.  But  it  is  the  rather  to  be  noted,  as, 
at  the  period  the  New  Testament  was  written,  there  was,  both  in  the  age  gen- 
erally, and  in  the  Jewish  section  of  it  in  particular,  a  strong  tendency  to  the 
allegorical  in  interpretation — to  the  strained,  the  fanciful,  the  puerile.  The 
records  of  Gospel  history  contain  many  plain  indications  of  this.  Our  Lord 
even  charged  the  Jewish  scholars  and  interpreters  of  His  day  with  rendering 
of  no  effect  the  law  of  God  by  their  traditions  (Mark  vii.  11-13);  and  evi- 
dently had  it  as  His  chief  aim,  in  a  considerable  part  of  His  public  teaching, 
to  vindicate  the  real  sense  of  ancient  Scripture  from  their  false  glosses  and 
sophistical  perversions.  The  oldest  Babbinical  writings  extant,  which  profess 
to  deliver  the  traditional  interpretations  of  the  leading  doctors  of  the  syna- 
gogue, sufficiently  evince  what  need  there  was  for  our  Lord  adopting  such  a 
course.  Such  as  know  these  only  from  the  quotations  adduced  by  Ainsworth, 
Lightfoot,  and  similar  writers,  see  them  only  in  what  is  at  once  by  far  their 
best  side  and  their  smallest  proportions.  For,  to  a  large  extent,  they  consist 
of  absurd,  incredible,  and  impure  stories;  abound  with  the  most  arbitrary 
and  ridiculous  conceits;  and,  as  a  whole,  tend  much  more  to  obscure  and 
perplex  the  meaning  of  Old  Testament  Scripture  than  explain  it.  It  was  even 
regarded  as  a  piece  of  laudable  ingenuity  to  multiply  as  much  as  possible  the 

*  Ein  Wort  iiber  tiefern  Schrifttinn,  pp.  7,  4. 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  365 

meanings  of  every  clause  and  text;  for,  as  Jeremiah  had  compared  the  word 
of  God  to  a  hammer  that  breaks  the  rock  in  pieces,  so  it  was  thought,  the 
word  must  admit  of  as  many  senses  as  the  rock  smitten  with  the  hammer 
might  produce  splinters.  Some  Babbinical  authorities,  therefore,  contend  for 
forty-nine,  and  others  for  as  many  as  seventy,  meanings  to  each  verse. ' 

When  we  pass  out  of  the  strictly  Jewish  territory  to  the  other  theological 
writings  of  the  first  ages,  we  are  seldom  allowed  to  travel  far  without  stum- 
bling on  something  of  the  same  description.  To  say  nothing  of  the  writings 
of  Philo,  which  are  replete  with  fanciful  allegorical  meanings,  but  which  could 
have  little  if  any  influence  in  Judea,  in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  (a  production 
probably  of  the  second  century)  we  find,  among  other  frivolous  things,  the 
circumcision  of  318  persons  in  Abraham's  house  interpreted  as  indicating  that 
the  patriarch  had  received  the  mystery  of  three  letters.  For  the  numerical 
value  of  the  two  leading  letters  that  stand  for  the  name  of  Jesus  is  18,  and  the 
letter  T,  the  figure  of  the  cross,  is  300;  "wherefore  by  two  letters  he  signified 
Jesus,  and  by  the  third  TTia  cross.  He  who  has  put  the  engrafted  gift  of  His 
doctrine  within  us,  knows  that  I  never  taught  to  any  one  a  more  certain  truth. " 
In  the  Epistle  of  Clement,  a  still  earlier  production,  the  scarlet  thread  which 
Bahab  suspended  from  her  window,  is  made  to  signify  that  there  should  be 
redemption  through  the  blood  of  Jesus  to  all  that  believe  and  hope  on  Him; 
and  the  fable  of  the  Phoenix,  dying  after  five  hundred  years,  and  giving  birth, 
when  dead,  to  another  destined  to  live  for  the  same  period,  is  gravely  treated 
as  a  fact  in  natural  science,  and  held  up  as  a  proof  of  the  resurrection.  Some 
things  of  a  similar  nature  are  also  to  be  met  with  in  Irenaeus,  and  many  in  the 
writings  of  Justin  Martyr.  Let  the  following  suffice  for  a  specimen: — 

"  When  the  people  fought  with  Amalek,  and  the  son  of  Nun,  called  Jesus, 
led  on  the  battle,  Moses  was  praying  to  God,  having  his  arms  extended  in  the 
form  of  a  cross.  As  long  as  he  remained  in  that  posture,  Amalek  was  beaten; 
but  if  he  ceased  in  any  degree  to  preserve  it,  the  people  were  worsted,  — all 
owing  to  the  power  of  the  cross;  for  the  people  did  not  conquer  because  Moses 

Sayed,  but  because  the  name  of  Jesus  was  at  the  head  of  the  battle,  and 
oses  himself  made  the  figure  of  the  cross." — (Dial.    Tryph.  p.  248,  Ed. 
Sylburg.) 

Now,  it  is  surely  no  small  proof  of  the  divine  character  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment writings,  that  they  stand  entirely  clear  from  such  strained  and  puerile 
interpretations,  notwithstanding  that  they  were  the  production  of  the  very  age 
and  people  peculiarly  addicted  to  such  things.  Though  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
from  the  circumstances  of  His  early  life,  could  not  have  enjoyed  more  than 
the  commonest  advantages,  He  yet  came  forth  as  a  public  teacher  nobly  supe- 
rior to  the  i'alse  spirit  of  the  times;  never  seeking  for  the  frivolous  or  the  fan- 
ciful, but  penetrating  with  the  profoundest  discernment  into  the  real  import 
of  the  divine  testimony.  And  even  the  apostle  Paul,  though  brought  up  at 
the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  whose  name  is  still  held  in  veneration  in  the  schools  of 
Rabbinical  learning,  betrays  nothing  of  the  sinister  bias  in  this  respect,  which 
his  early  training  must  have  tended  to  impart  He  writes  as  one  well  skilled, 

i  Elsenmenger,  Entdecta  Judtnthum,  vol.  i  ch.  9.  This  laborious  Investigator  of  Jewish 
writings  justly  cats  their  expositions  "foolish  and  perverted,"  and  supports  the  assertion 
with  ample  proof.  Thus — to  refer  only  to  one  or  two — on  the  passage  which  narrates  the 
meeting  of  Esau  and  Jacob,  it  is  gathered  in  the  Sereschith  Babba,  from  a  small  peculiarity 
in  one  of  the  words,  that  Esau  did  not  come  to  kiss,  but  to  bite,  and  that  "  our  father  Jacob's 
neck  was  changed  into  marble,  so  that  the  teeth  of  the  ungodly  man  were  broken."  The 
passage  in  Pa.  xcii.  10 — "  My  horn  shalt  Thou  exalt  like  the  horn  of  an  unicorn ;  I  shall  be 
anointed  with  fresh  oil  "—is  explained  in  the  Jalkul  "hudash  by  the  statement,  that  while  in 
"anointing  the  other  sons  of  Jesse  the  oil  was  poure  1  out,  when  David's  turn  came,  the  oil 
of  itself  flowed  and  ran  upon  his  head."  These,  indeed,  are  among  the  simpler  specimens; 
for,  by  giving  a  numerical  value  to  the  letters,  the  most  extravagant  and  senseless  opinions 
were  thus  obtained.  The  fact,  however,  is  of  importance,  as  it  provides  a  sufficient  answer 
to  the  mode  of  interpretation  adopted  by  many  modern  expositors,  who  think  it  enough, 
to  justify  the  evangelists  in  putting  what  they  regard  as  a  false  meaning  upon  words  of 
prophecy,  to  say  that  the  Jewish  writers  were  in  the  habit  of  applying  Scripture  in  the  same 
way — applying  it  in  a  sense  different  from  its  original  import.  It  is  forgotten  in  this  case 
that  the  Jewish  writers  actually  believed  Scripture  to  have  many  senses,  and  that  when  they 
speak  of  its  being  fulfilled,  they  meant  that  the  words  really  had  the  sense  they  ascribe  to 
them. 


866  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCEIPTUBE. 

indeed,  to  reason  and  dispute,  but  still  always  as  one  thoroughly  versant  in 
the  real  meaning  of  Scripture,  and  incapable  of  stooping  to  any  thing  trifling 
and  fantastical.  And  that  there  should  thus  have  been,  in  persons  so  circum- 
stanced, along  with  a  frequent  handling  of  Old  Testament  Scripture,  a  per- 
fectly sober  and  intelligent  use  of  it, — a  spirit  of  interpretation  pervading  and 
directing  that  use,  which  can  stand  even  the  searching  investigations  of  the 
nineteenth  century, — can  not  fail  to  raise  the  question  in  candid  and  thought- 
ful minds,  "  Whence  had  these  men  this  wisdom?  "  It  is  alone  fitted  to  im- 
press us  with  the  conviction,  that  they  were  men  specially  taught  by  God,  and 
that  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  gave  them  understanding. 

We  have  stated,  however,  that  though  there  are  no  real  departures  in  the 
writings  of  the  New  Testament  from  a  sound  and  judicious  explanation  of  the 
historical  and  didactic  parts  of  the  Old,  there  are  a  few  apparent  ones — a  few 
that  may  seem  to  be  such  on  a  superficial  consideration.  One  passage,  and 
only  one  in  our  Lord's  history,  belongs  to  this  class.  It  is  His  scriptural 
proof  of  the  resurrection,  in  reply  to  the  shallow  objection  of  the  Sadducees, 
which  He  drew  from  the  declaration  of  God  to  Moses  at  the  bush,  "I  am  the 
God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob. "  It  is  clear  from 
this  alone,  our  Lord  argued,  that  the  dead  are  raised;  "for  God  is  not  the 
God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living;  for  all  live  unto  Him." — (Matt.  xxii.  32; 
Luke  xx.  38.)  The  argument  was  openly  stigmatized  by  the  notorious  Wolf- 
enbuttle-fragmentist  of  the  last  century,  as  of  the  Rabbinical  hairsplitting 
kind;  and  more  recently,  Strauss,  with  some  others  of  a  kindred  spirit  in 
Germany,  have  both  regarded  it  as  a  "  cabalistical  exposition,"  and  urged  as 
an  additional  reason  for  so  regarding  it,  that  the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  was 
derived  by  the  Jews  from  other  nations,  and  can  not  be  proved  from  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Old  Testament.  Most  worthy  successors  truly  to  those  Sadducean 
objectors  whom  our  Lord  sought  to  confute — equally  shallow  in  their  notions 
of  God,  and  equally  at  fault  in  their  reading  of  His  written  word  I  So  far  from 
deriving  the  notion  of  a  future  state,  in  the  particular  aspect  of  it  now  under 
consideration, — a  resurrection  from  the  dead, — from  the  heathen  nations 
around  them,  the  Jews  were  the  only  people  in  antiquity  who  held  it;  the 
Gentile  philosophy  in  all  its  branches  rejected  it  as  incredible.  And  the  con- 
struction put  by  our  Lord  on  the  words  spoken  to  Moses,  so  far  from  being 
cabalistical  or  hairsplitting,  simply  penetrates  to  the  fundamental  principles 
involved  in  the  relation  they  indicate  between  God  and  His  servants.  "  The 
God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob  " — theirs  in  the  full  and  proper  sense, 
to  be  to  them,  and  to  do  for  them,  whatever  such  a  Being,  standing  in  such  a 
relation,  could  be  and  do;  therefore,  most  assuredly,  to  raise  them  from  the 
dead,  since,  if  one  part  of  their  natures  were  to  be  left  there  the  prey  of  cor- 
ruption, He  might  justly  be  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God. — (Heb.  xi.  16. ) 
"How  could  God,"  Neander  properly  asks,  "place  Himself  in  so  near  a  rela- 
tion to  individual  men,  and  ascribe  to  them  so  high  a  dignity,  if  they  were 
mere  perishable  appearances,  if  they  had  not  an  essence  akin  to  His  own,  and 
destined  for  immortality  ?  The  living  God  can  only  be  conceived  of  as  the 
God  of  the  living."  '  Yes,  the  whole  Law,  in  a  sense,  bore  witness  to  that;  for 
there  death  constantly  appears  as  the  embodiment  of  foulness  and  corruption, 
with  which  the  pure  and  Holy  One  can  not  dwell  in  union.  So  that  for  those 
who  are  really  His,  He  must  manifest  Himself  as  the  conqueror  of  death;  their 
relation  to  Him,  as  His  peculiar  people,  is  a  nonentity,  if  it  does  not  carry 
this  in  its  train.  How  profound,  then,  yet  how  simple  and  how  true,  is  the 
insight  which  our  Lord  here  discovers  into  the  realities  of  things,  compared 
either  with  His  ancient  adversaries  or  His  modern  assailants !  And  how  little 
does  his  argument  need  such  diluted  explanations  to  recommend  it  as  those 
of  Euinoel, — "  God  is  called  the  God  of  any  one,  in  BO  far  as  He  endows  them 
with  benefits;  but  He  can  not  bestow  benefits  upon  the  dead,  therefore  they 
live!" 

A  passage  that  has  much  more  commonly  been  regarded  by  commentators 
u  breathing  the  dialectics  of  the  Jewish  schools,  is  GaL  iv.  21-31,  where  the 

«  LifiofJena,  1948. 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  367 

apostle,  in  arguing  against  the  legal  and  fleshly  tendencies  of  the  Galatiang: 
gammons  them  to  "hear  the  law.  And  then  he  calls  to  their  remembrance 
the  circumstances  recorded  of  the  two  wives  of  Abraham  and  their  offspring, 
the  one  Sarah,  the  free  woman,  the  mother  of  the  children  of  promise,  or  the 
spiritual  seed,  corresponding  to  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  and  its  true  worship- 

Sers;  the  other  Hagar,  the  bond  woman,  the  mother  of  a  seed  born  »fter  the 
esh,  carnal  and  ungodly  in  spirit,  and  so  corresponding  to  the  earthly  Jeru- 
salem, or  Sinai,  with  its  covenant  of  law,  and  its  slavish  carnal  worshippers. 
And  the  apostle  declares  it  as  certain  that  worshippers  of  this  class  must  all 
be  cast  out  from  any  inheritance  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  even  as  Hagar  and 
her  fleshly  son  were,  by  divine  command,  driven  out  of  Abraham's  house, 
that  the  true  child  of  promise  might  dwell  in  peace,  and  inherit  the  blessing. 
It  is  true,  the  apostle  himself  calls  this  an  allegorizing  of  the  history,  which 
is  quite  enough  with  some  to  stamp  it  as  fanciful  and  weak.  And  there  are 
others,  looking  merely  to  the  superficial  appearances,  who  allege  that  the 
exposition  fails,  since  the  child  of  Hagar  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  law, 
while  it  was  precisely  the  posterity  of  Sarah,  by  the  line  of  Isaac,  who  stood 
bound  by  its  requirements.  This  is  an  objection  that  could  be  urged  only  by 
those  who  did  not  perceive  the  real  drift  of  the  apostle's  statement.  We  shall 
have  occasion  to  unfold  this  in  a  subsequent  part  of  our  inquiry,  when  we  come 
to  speak  of  what  the  law  could  not  do.  Meanwhile,  we  affirm  that  the  apos- 
tle's comment  proceeds  on  the  sound  principle,  that  the  things  which  took 
place  in  Abraham's  house  in  regard  to  a  seed  of  promise  and  blessing  were 
all  ordered  specially  and  peculiarly  to  exhibit  at  the  very  outset  the  truth, 
that  such  a  seed  must  be  begotten  from  above,  and  that  all  not  thus  begotten, 
though  encompassed,  it  might  be,  with  the  solemnities  and  privileges  of  the 
covenant,  were  born  after  the  flesh — Ishmaelites  in  spirit,  and  strangers  to 
the  promise.  The  apostle  merely  reads  out  the  spiritual  lessons  that  lay 
enfolded  in  the  history  of  Abraham's  family  as  significant  of  things  to  come; 
and  to  say  that  the  similitude  fails,  because  the  law  was  given  to  the  posterity 
of  Sarah  and  not  of  Hagar,  betrays  an  utter  misapprehension  of  what  the  real 
design  of  the  law  was,  and  what  should  have  been  expected  from  it.  The 
interpretation  of  the  apostle  brings  out  the  fundamental  principles  involved 
in  the  transactions,  and  it  does  no  more. 

Those  who  would  fasten  on  the  apostle  the  charge  of  resorting  to  Rabbin- 
ical arbitrariness  and  conceit,  point  with  considerable  confidence  to  a  passage 
in  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  The  passage  is  1  Cor.  x.  1-4,  where 
the  apostle  reminds  the  Corinthians  how  their  fathers  had  been  "under  the 
cloud,  and  had  passed  through  the  sea;  and  had  been  baptized  into  Moses  in 
the  cloud  and  in  the  sea;  and  had  all  eaten  the  same  spiritual  food,  and  all 
drunk  of  the  same  spiritual  drink;  for  they  drank  of  that  spiritual  Bock 
which  followed  them,  and  that  Bock  was  Christ."  In  this  latter  part  of  the 
description,  it  has  been  alleged  (latterly  by  De  Wette,  Buckert,  Meyer)  that 
the  apostle  adopts  the  Jewish  legends  respecting  the  rock  at  Horeb  having 
actually  followed  the  Israelites  in  their  wanderings,  and  puts  a  feigned  alle- 
.  gorical  construction  on  the  other  parts  to  suit  his  purpose.  The  passage  will 
naturally  present  itself  for  explanation  when  we  come  to  the  period  in  Israel's 
history  to  which  it  refers.1  At  present  it  is  enough  to  say  that  we  have 
merely  to  take  the  apostle's  statements  in  their  proper  connection,  and  make 
due  allowance  for  the  figurative  use  of  language.  He  is  representing  the 
position  of  the  Israelites  in  the  desert  as  substantially  one  with  that  of  the 
Corinthians.  And,  to  make  it  more  manifest,  he  even  applies  the  terms  fitted 
to  express  the  condition  of  the  Corinthians  to  the  case  of  the  Israelites : — 
These,  says  he,  were  baptized  like  you,  had  Christ  among  them  like  you,  and 
like  you  were  privileged  to  eat  and  drink  as  guests  in  the  Lord's  house.  Of 
course,  language  transferred  thus  from  one  part  of  God's  dispensations  to 
another,  could  never  be  meant  to  be  taken  very  strictly;  no  more  could  it  be 
BO,  when  th«  new  things  of  the  Christian  dispensation  were  applied  to  the 

1  See  ToL  IL  ch.  L  |  4. 


868  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Israelites,  than  when  the  old  things  of  the  Jewish  are  applied  to  the  memben 
of  the  Christian  Church.  In  this  latter  mode  of  application  the  Christian 
Church  is  spoken  of  as  having  a  temple  as  Israel  had,  an  altar,  a  passover- 
lamb  and  feast,  a  sprinkling  with  blood,  a  circumcision.  Yet  every  one  knows 
that  what  is  meant  by  such  language  is,  not  that  the  very  things  themselves, 
the  things  in  their  outward  form  and  appearance,  but  that  the  inward  reali- 
ties signified  by  them  belong  to  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  old  name  is  re- 
tamed,  though  actually  denoting  something  higher  and  better.  And  we  must 
interpret  in  the  same  way  when  the  transference  is  made  in  the  reverse  order 
— when  the  new  things  of  the  Christian  Church  are  ascribed  to  the  ancient 
Israelites.  By  the  cloud  passing  over  and  resting  between  them  and  the 
Egyptians,  and  afterwards  by  their  passing  under  its  protection  through  the 
Bed  Sea  in  safety,  they  were  baptized  into  Moses;  for  thus  the  line  of  de- 
marcation was  drawn  between  their  old  vassalage  and  the  new  state  and  pros- 
pects on  which,  under  Moses,  they  had  entered;  and  Christ  Himself,  whose 
servant  Moses  was,  was  present  with  them,  feeding  them  as  from  His  own 
hands  with  direct  supplies  of  meat  and  drink,  till  they  reached  the  promised 
inheritance.  In  short,  these  were  to  them  relatively  what  Christian  baptism 
and  the  Lord's  Supper  are  to  believers  now.  But  not  in  themselves  formally 
the  same.  Christ  was  there  only  in  a  mystery;  gospel  ordinances  were  pos- 
sessed only  under  the  shadow  of  means  and  provisions,  adapted  immediately 
to  their  bodily  wants  and  temporal  condition.  Yet  still  Christ  and  the  gospel 
were  there ;  for  all  that  was  then  given  and  done  linked  itself  by  a  spiritual 
bond  with  the  better  things  to  come,  and  as  in  a  glass  darkly  reflected  the 
benefits  of  redemption.  So  that,  as  the  Israelites  in  the  desert  stood  relative- 
ly in  the  same  position  with  the  professing  Church  under  the  gospel,  the  lan- 
guage here  used  by  the  apostle  merely  shows  how  clearly  he  perceived  the 
points  of  resemblance,  and  how  profoundly  he  looked  into  the  connection  be- 
tween them. 


II. PROPHECIES   REFERRED   TO  BT  CHRIST. 

We  no  sooner  open  the  evangelical  narratives  of  New  Testament  Scripture, 
than  we  meet  with  references  and  appeals  to  the  prophecies  of  the  Old.  The 
leading  personages  and  transactions  of  gospel  times  are  constantly  presented 
to  our  view  as  those  that  had  been  foreseen  and  described  by  ancient  seers; 
and  at  every  important  turn  in  the  evolution  of  affairs,  we  find  particular  pas- 
sages of  prophecy  quoted  as  receiving  their  fulfilment  in  what  was  taking 
place.  But  we  soon  perceive  that  the  connection  between  the  predictions  re- 
ferred to  and  their  alleged  fulfilment  is  by  no  means  uniformly  of  the  same 
kind.  It  appears  sometimes  more  natural  and  obvious  in  its  nature,  and 
sometimes  more  mystical  and  recondite.  The  latter,  of  course,  in  an  inquiry 
like  the  present,  are  such  as  more  especially  call  for  consideration  and  re- 
mark; but  the  others  are  not  on  that  account  to  be  passed  over  in  silence: 
for  they  are  so  far  at  least  of  importance,  that  they  show  what  class  of  predic- 
tions, in  the  estimation  of  our  Lord  and  His  apostles,  most  obviously  point 
to  the  affairs  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom,  and  afford  also  an  opportunity  of 
marking  how  the  transition  began  to  be  made  to  a  further  and  freer  applica- 
tion of  Old  Testament  prophecy. 

In  this  line  of  inquiry,  however,  it  will  not  do  to  take  up  the  references  to 
the  prophets  precisely  as  they  occur  in  the  Gospels;  for  the  evangelists  did 
not  write  their  narratives  of  our  Lord's  personal  history  till  a  considerable 
time  after  the  events  that  compose  it  had  taken  place — not  till  the  deeper  as 
well  as  the  more  obvious  things  connected  with  it  had  become  known  to  them; 
and  not  a  few  of  the  prophetical  references  found  in  their  narratives  were  only 
understood  by  themselves  at  a  period  much  later  than  that  at  which  the  events 
occurred.  It  is  in  Christ's  own  teaching,  communicated  as  the  events  were 
actually  in  progress,  that  we  may  expect  to  find  the  most  simple  and  direct 
applications  of  prophecy,  and  the  key  to  the  entire  use  of  it  subsequently 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  369 

made  by  His  apostles.  For  the  present,  therefore,  we  shall  throw  ourselves 
back  upon  the  transactions  of  the  gospel  age,  and  with  our  eye  upon  Him 
who  was  at  once  the  centre  and  the  prime  agent  of  the  whole,  we  shall  note 
the  manner  in  which  He  reads  to  those  around  Him  the  prophecies  that  bore 
on  Himself  and  His  times.  We  shall  take  them,  not  in  the  historical  order  they 
occupy  in  the  narratives  of  the  Evangelists,  but  in  the  antecedent  order  which 
belonged  to  them,  as  quoted  in  the  public  ministry  of  Christ.  We  shall  thus 
see  how  He  led  those  around  Him,  step  by  step,  to  a  right  understanding  of 
the  prophecies  in  their  evangelical  import. 

Not  far  from  the  commencement  of  our  Lord's  public  ministry,  and  on  the 
occasion,  as  it  would  seem,  of  His  first  public  appearance  in  the  synagogue 
of  Nazareth,  He  opened  the  book  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  that  had  been  put 
into  His  hands,  and  read  from  chap.  Ixi.  the  following  words:  "The  spirit  of 
the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  the  Gospel  to 
the  poor:  He  hath  sent  me  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach  deliverance 
to  the  captives,  and  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them 
that  are  bruised;  to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord.  And  He  closed 
the  book,"  it  is  added  by  the  evangelist,  "and  began  to  say  unto  them,  This 
day  is  this  scripture  fulfilled  in  your  ears."  The  passage  thus  quoted,  and  so 
emphatically  applied  by  Jesus  to  Himself,  is  one  of  those  in  the  later  portion 
of  Isaiah's  writings  (comprehending  also  chaps,  xlii.,  xlix.,  liii. )  which  evi- 
dently treat  of  one  grand  theme — "the  Lord's  servant,"  His  "elect"  one, 
Him  "in  whom  His  soul  delighted";  unfolding  what  this  wonderful  and 
mysterious  personage  was  to  be,  to  do,  and  to  suffer  for  the  redemption  of  the 
Lord's  people,  and  the  vindication  of  His  cause  in  the  earth.  It  is  matter  of 
certainty  that,  in  the  judgment  of  the  ancient  Jewish  Church,  the  person 
spoken  of  in  all  these  passages  was  the  Messiah; '  so  that,  in  applying  to  Him- 
self that  particular  passage  in  Isaiah,  Jesus  not  only  advanced  the  claim,  but 
He  must  have  been  perfectly  understood  by  those  present  to  advance  the 
claim,  to  be  the  Messiah  of  the  Jewish  prophets.  The  modern  Jews,  and  a 
considerable  number  also  of  Christian  expositors  (chiefly  on  the  Continent), 
have  endeavored  to  prove  that  the  immediate  and  proper  reference  in  this 
and  the  other  passages  in  Isaiah  connected  with  it,  is  to  the  Jewish  nation  as 
a  whole,  or  to  the  prophetical  class  in  particular.  But  these  attempts  have 
signally  failed.  It  stands  fast,  as  the  result  of  the  most  careful  and  searching 
criticism,  that  the  words  of  the  prophet  can  only  be  understood  of  a  single 
individual,  in  whom  far  higher  than  human  powers  were  to  develop  them- 
selves, and  who  was  to  do,  as  well  for  Israel  as  for  the  world  at  large,  what 
Israel  had  been  found  utterly  incompetent,  even  in  the  lighter  departments 
of  the  work,  to  accomplish.  In  a  word,  they  can  be  understood  only  of  the 
promised  Messiah.  And  of  all  that  had  been  spoken  concerning  Him  by  the 
prophet  Isaiah,  there  is  not  a  passage  to  be  found  that  could  more  fitly  have 
been  appropriated  by  Jesus  than  the  one  He  read  at  that  opening  stage  of  His 
career,  as  it  describes  Him  in  respect  to  the  whole  reach  and  compass  of  His 
divine  commission,  with  all  its  restorative  energies  and  beneficent  results. 
We  see  as  well  the  wisdom  of  the  selection  as  the  justness  of  the  application. 
It  is  also  to  be  noted,  that  the  appropriation  by  our  Lord  of  the  passage  in 
this  sixty-first  chapter  of  Isaiah,  gives  the  virtual  sanction  of  His  authority  to 
the  applications  elsewhere  made  of  other  passages  in  the  same  prophetical 
discourse  to  gospel  times — such  as  Matt.  xii.  18-21;  Acts  viii.  32-35,  xiii.  47; 
Kom.  x.  21;  1  Pet.  ii.  23-25,  where  portions  of  Isa.  xlii.,  xlix.,  liii.,  are  so 
applied. 

The  next  open  and  public  appeal  made  by  our  Lord  to  an  ancient  prophecy, 
was  made  with  immediate  respect  to  John  the  Baptist.  It  was  probably  about 
the  middle  of  Christ's  ministry,  and  shortly  before  the  death  of  John.  Tak- 
ing occasion  from  John's  message  to  speak  of  the  distinguished  place  he  held 
among  God's  servants,  the  Lord  said,  "This  is  he  of  whom  it  is  written, 

1  See  Lightfoot,  HOT.  Heb.  on  Matt  xii.  20  and  John  v.  19;  Schottgen  de  Mestia,  pp.  113, 
192;  Hengatenberg's  Christoloyy  on  laa.  xlii.  1-9,  xlix.,  liii.  2.  Also  Alexander  on  the  um« 
paasagas,  and  1x1. 

VOL.  I. 24 


870  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPT  DUE. 

Behold,  I  send  my  messenger  before  Thy  face,  and  he  shall  prepare  Thy  way 
before  Thee."  The  words  are  taken  from  the  beginning  of  the  third  chapter 
of  Malachi,  with  no  other  difference  than  that  He  who  there  sends  is  also  the 
one  before  whom  the  way  was  to  be  prepared:  "He  shall  prepare  the  way 
before  me."  The  reason  of  this  variation  will  be  noticed  presently.  But  in 
regard  to  John,  that  he  was  the  person  specially  intended  by  the  prophet  as 
the  herald-messenger  of  the  Lord,  can  admit  of  no  doubt  on  the  part  of  any 
one  who  sincerely  believes  that  Jesus  was  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  and  per- 
sonally tabernacling  among  men.  John  himself  does  not  appear  to  have 
formally  appropriated  this  passage  in  Malachi;  but  he  virtually  did  so  when 
he  described  himself  in  the  words  of  a  passage  in  Isaiah,  "I  am  the  voice  of 
one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord";  for  the  pas- 
sage in  Malachi  is  merely  a  resumption,  with  a  few  additional  characteristics, 
of  that  more  ancient  one  in  Isaiah.  And  on  this  account  they  are  both  thrown 
together  at  the  commencement  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel,  as  if  they  formed  indeed 
but  one  prediction:  "  As  it  is  written  in  the  prophets  (the  better  copies  even 
read,  'by  Isaiah  the  prophet'),  Behold,  I  send  my  messenger  before  Thy 
face,  which  shall  prepare  Thy  way  before  Thee.  The  voice  of  one  crying  in 
the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  make  His  paths  straight." 
And  there  is  still  another  prediction — one  at  the  very  close  of  Malachi — which 
is  but  a  new,  and  in  some  respects  more  specific,  announcement  of  what  was 
already  uttered  in  these  earlier  prophecies.  In  this  last  prediction  the  pre- 
paratory messenger  is  expressly  called  by  the  name  of  Elias  the  prophet;  and 
the  work  he  had  to  do  "before  the  coming  of  the  Lord,"  is  described  as  that 
of  turning  "the  heart  of  the  fathers  (or  making  it  return)  to  the  children,  and 
the  heart  of  the  children  to  their  fathers."  As  this  was  the  last  word  of  the 
Old  Testament,  so  it  is  in  a  manner  the  first  word  of  the  New;  for  the  proph- 
ecy was  taken  up  by  the  angel,  who  announced  to  Zacharias  the  birth  of  John, 
and  at  once  applied  and  explained  by  him  in  connection  with  the  mission  of 
John.  "Many  of  the  children  of  Israel,"  said  the  angel,  "shall  he  turn  to 
the  Lord  their  God;  and  he  shall  go  before  Him  in  the  spirit  and  power  of 
Elias,  to  turn  the  hearts  of  the  fathers  to  the  children,  and  the  disobedient  to 
the  wisdom  of  the  just;  to  make  ready  a  people  prepared  for  the  Lord."- 
(Luke  i.  16,  17. )  Here  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  as  in  all  the  passages  under 
consideration,  was  the  grand  terminating  point  of  the  prophecy,  and,  as  pre- 
paratory to  this,  the  making  ready  of  a  people  for  it.  This  making  ready  of 
the  people,  or  turning  them  back  again  (with  reference  to  the  words  of  Elijah 
in  1  Kings  xviii.  37)  to  the  Lord  their  God,  is  twice  mentioned  by  the  angel 
as  the  object  of  John's  mission.  And,  between  the  two,  there  is  given  what 
is  properly  but  another  view  of  the  same  thing,  only  with  express  reference  to 
the  Elijah-like  character  of  the  work:  John  was  to  go  before  the  Lord  as  a 
new  Elias,  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  that  great  prophet,  and  for  the  purpose 
of  effecting  a  reconciliation  between  the  degenerate  seed  of  Israel  and  their 
pious  forefathers — making  them  again  of  one  heart  and  soul,  so  that  the  fathers 
might  not  be  ashamed  of  their  children,  nor  the  children  of  their  fathers;  in 
a  word,  that  he  might  effect  a  real  reformation,  by  turning  "  the  disobedient 
(offspring)  to  the  wisdom  of  the  just  (ancestors)."  Thus  in  all  these  pas- 
sages— to  which  we  may  also  add  the  private  testimony  of  our  Lord  to  the 
disciples  as  to  Elias  having  indeed  come  (Mark  ix.  13) — there  is  a  direct  appli- 
cation of  the  Old  Testament  prophecy,  in  a  series  of  closely-related  predic- 
tions, to  the  person  and  mission  of  John  the  Baptist.  And  so  far  from  any 
violence  or  constraint  appearing  in  this  application,  the  predictions  are  all 
taken  in  their  most  natural  and  obvious  meaning.  For  that  the  literal  Elias 
was  no  more  to  be  expected  from  the  last  of  these  predictions,  than  the  lit- 
eral David  from  Ezek.  xxxiv.  23,  seems  plain  enough:  the  person  meant  could 
only  be  one  coming  in  the  spirit  of  Elias,  and  commissioned  to  do  substan- 
tially his  work.  So  also  Jezebel  and  Balaam  are  spoken  of  as  reviving  in  the 
teachers  of  false  doctrine  and  the  ringleaders  of  corruption  who  appeared  in 
some  of  the  churches  of  Asia  (llev.  ii.  14,  20). 

But  we  must  pass  on  to  another  instance  of  fulfilled  prophecy.     It  will 
be  observed,  that  in  all  those  passages  out  of  Isaiah  and  Malachi  applied  to 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  371 

John  the  Baptist,  there  was  involved  an  application  also  to  Christ  Himself,  aa 
being  the  person  whose  way  John  was  sent  to  prepare.  The  assertion,  that 
John  was  the  herald-messenger  foretold  in  them,  clearly  implied  that  Jesus  oi 
Nazareth  was  the  Lord  who  was  to  come  to  His  people,  or  "the  Angel  of  the 
Covenant  that  was  to  come  suddenly  to  His  temple.  He,  therefore,  was  the 
Lord  of  the  temple,  or  the  divine  head  and  proprietor  of  the  covenant  people 
whom  that  temple  symbolized,  and  in  the  midst  of  whom  He  appeared  as  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  But  this  the  Lord  merely  left  to  be  inferred  from  what 
He  said  of  John;  He  even  seems  to  have  purposely  drawn  a  sort  of  veil  over 
it,  by  the  slight  change  He  introduced  into  the  words  of  Malachi,  saying,  not 
"before  me,  but  "before  Thy  fact."  For  He  well  knew  that  those  to  whom 
He  spake  could  not  bear  in  this  respect  the  plain  announcement  of  the  truth. 
— indeed,  least  of  all  here;  they  could  not  even  bear  to  hear  Jesus  call  Himself 
by  the  milder  epithet  of  the  Son  of  God.  Sometime,  however,  if  not  at  pres- 
ent, the  Lord  must  give  them  to  know,  that  in  this  rooted  antipathy  to  the 
essentially  divine  character  of  Messiah,  they  had  their  own  Scriptures  against 
them.  And  so,  in  the  next  public  appeal  He  made  to  the  prophetical  Script- 
ures, He  selected  this  point  in  particular  for  proof.  But  that  the  appeal 
might  come  with  more  power  to  their  consciences,  he  threw  it  into  the  form, 
not  of  an  assertion,  but  of  an  interrogation.  He  put  it  to  themselves,  "What 
think  ye  of  Christ?  whose  Son  is  He?  They  say  unto  Him,  The  son  of  David. 
He  saith  unto  them,  How  then  doth  David  in  spirit  call  Tfim  Lord,  saying, 
The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,  Sit  Thou  on  my  right  hand,  till  I  make  Thine 
enemies  Thy  footstool?  If  David  then  call  Him  Lord  how  is  He  his  Son?" — 
(Matt.  xxii.  42-45. )  The  familiar  allusion  here,  and  in  other  passages  of  the 
New  Testament,  to  this  psalm,  as  descriptive  of  the  Messiah,  clearly  evinces 
what  was  the  view  taken  of  it  by  the  ancient  Jewish  Rabbis.  Such  an  argu- 
mentative use  of  it  could  only  have  been  made  on  the  ground  that  it  was  held 
by  general  consent  to  be  a  prophecy  of  Christ.  Efforts  have  again  and  again 
been  made  in  modern  times  to  controvert  this  view,  but  without  any  measure 
of  success.  And,  indeed,  apart  altogether  from  the  explicit  testimony  of  our 
Lord  and  His  apostles,  looking  merely  to  what  is  said  of  the  hero  of  this 
psalm, — that  He  stood  to  David  himself  in  the  relation  of  Lord;  that  He  was 
to  sit  on  Jehovah's  right  hand,  that  is,  should  be  invested  with  the  power  and 
sovereignty  of  God;  that  He  should,  like  Melchizedek,  be  a  priest  on  the 
throne,  and  that  forever, — it  is  impossible  to  take  these  parts  of  the  descrip- 
tion in  their  natural  meaning,  and  understand  them  of  any  one  but  the  Mes- 
siah,— a  Messiah,  too,  combining  in  His  mysterious  person  properties  at  once 
human  and  divine.  The  silence  of  our  Lord's  adversaries  then  and  the  fruit- 
less labors  of  His  detractors  since,  are  confirmatory  testimonies  to  the  sound- 
ness of  this  application  of  the  psalm  as  the  only  tenable  one. 

Another  purpose — one  immediately  connected  with  His  humiliation — led 
our  Lord,  very  shortly  after  the  occasion  last  referred  to,  to  point  to  another 
prophecy  as  presently  going  to  meet  with  its  fulfilment  It  was  when,  fresh 
from  the  celebration  of  the  paschal  feast  and  His  own  supper,  He  had  retired 
with  His  disciples,  under  the  shade  of  night,  to  the  Mount  of  Olives:  "Then 
said  Jesus  unto  them,  All  ye  shall  be  offended  because  of  me  this  night:  for  it 
is  written,  I  will  smite  the  Shepherd  and  the  sheep  of  the  flock  shall  be  scat- 
tered abroad." — (Matt  xxvi.  31.)  So  it  had  been  written  in  Zech.  xiii.  7, 
respecting  that  peculiar  Shepherd  and  His  flock,  who  was  to  be  Jehovah's 
fellow,  or  rather  His  near  relation — for  so  the  word  in  the  original  imports; 
and  hence,  when  spoken  of  any  one's  relation  to  God,  it  can  not  possibly 
denote  a  mere  man,  but  can  only  be  understood  of  one  who,  by  virtue  of  His 
divine  nature,  stands  on  a  footing  of  essential  equality  with  God.  All  other 
interpretations,  whether  by  Jews  or  Christians,  can  only  be  regarded  as  shifts, 
devised  to  explain  away  or  get  rid  of  the  plain  meaning  of  the  prophecy. 
And  it  was  here  more  especially  chosen  by  our  Lord,  as,  more  distinctly  and 
emphatically  perhaps  than  any  other  prediction  in  Old  Testament  Scripture, 
it  combined  with  the  peerless  dignity  of  Christ's  nature  the  fearful  depth  of 
His  humiliation  and  suffering;  and  so  was  at  once  fitted  to  instruct  and  com- 
fort the  disciples  in  respect  to  the  season  of  tribulation  that  was  before  them, 


872  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

It  told  them,  indeed,  that  the  suffering  was  inevitable;  bnt  at  the  same  time 
imparted  the  consolation,  that  so  exalted  a  sufferer  could  only  suffer  for  a 
time.  But  though  this  was  the  only  prophetical  passage  particularly  noticed, 
as  having  been  explained  by  Christ  with  reference  to  His  sufferings,  we  are 
expressly  informed  that,  after  His  resurrection  at  least,  He  made  a  similar 
application  of  many  others.  He  reproved  the  two  disciples  on  their  way  to 
Emmaus  for  their  dulness  and  incredulity,  because  they  had  not  learned  from 
the  prophets  how  Christ  must  suffer  before  entering  into  His  glory:  "And 
beginning  at  Moses  and  all  the  prophets,  He  expounded  unto  them  in  all 
the  Scriptures  the  things  concerning  Himself."  Indeed,  it  would  appear  that, 
even  before  His  death,  He  had  referred  to  various  scriptures  bearing  on  this 
point;  for,  at  Luke  xxiv.  44,  we  find  Him  saying  to  the  disciples  in  a  body 
"  These  are  the  words  which  I  spake  unto  you,  while  I  was  yet  with  you,  that 
all  things  must  be  fulfilled  which  were  written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the 
Prophets,  and  in  the  Psalms,  concerning  me."  But  as  what  had  been  spoken 
previously  had  been  spoken  to  little  purpose,  He  then  "  opened  their  under- 
standings, that  they  might  understand  the  Scriptures;"  and  said  unto  them, 
' '  Thus  it  is  written,  and  thus  it  behoved  Christ  to  suffer,  and  to  rise  from 
the  dead  on  the  third  day,"  etc. 

Nor  are  we  left  altogether  without  the  means  of  knowing  what  portions 
of  Old  Testament  Scripture  our  Lord  thus  applied  to  Himself.  The  apostles 
undoubtedly  proceeded  to  act  upon  the  instruction  they  had  received,  and 
to  make  use  of  the  light  that  had  been  imparted  to  them.  And  when,  on 
opening  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  we  find  Peter,  in  chap,  i.,  applying  with- 
out hesitation  or  reserve  what  is  written  in  Ps.  cix.  to  the  persecutions  of 
Jesus  and  the  apostasy  of  Judas:  again,  in  chap,  ii,  applying  in  like  manner 
what  is  written  in  Ps.  xvi.  to  Christ's  speedy  resurrection;  Ps.  ex.,  to  His 
exaltation  to  power  and  glory;  and  Joel  ii.  28-32,  to  the  gift  of  the  Spirit;  in 
chap,  iii.,  affirming  Jesus  to  be  the  prophet  that  Moses  had  foretold  should 
be  raised  up  like  to  himself;  in  chap.  iv. ,  speaking  of  Jesus  as  the  stone  rejected 
by  the  builders,  but  raised  by  God  to  the  head  of  the  corner,  as  written  in 
Ps.  cxviii.  (an  application  that  had  already  been  indicated  at  least  by  Christ 
in  a  public  discourse  with  the  Jews,  Matt.  xxi.  42);  and,  along  with  the  other 
apostles,  describing  Christ  as  the  anointed  king  in  Ps.  ii.,  against  whom  the 
heathen  raged,  and  the  people  imagined  vain  things; — when  we  read  all  this, 
it  is  scarcely  possible  to  doubt  that  we  have  in  it  the  fruit  of  that  more  special 
instruction  which  our  Lord  gave  to  His  disciples,  when  He  opened  their  under- 
standing that  they  might  understand  the  Scriptures.  It  is  Christ's  own  teach- 
ing made  known  to  us  through  the  report  of  those  who  had  received  it  from  His 
lips.  And  any  interpretation  of  those  passages  of  Old  Testament  Scripture 
which  would  deny  their  fair  and  legitimate  application  to  Christ  and  the 
things  of  His  kingdom,  must  be  regarded  as  a  virtual  reflection  on  the  wis- 
dom and  authority  of  Christ  Himself. 

But  it  does  not  follow  from  this,  that  Christ  and  gospel  events  must  in 
all  of  them  have  been  exclusively  intended;  it  may  be  enough  if  in  some  they 
were  more  peculiarly  included  More  could  scarcely  be  meant,  especially  in 
respect  to  Ps.  cix.  and  cxviii.,  in  both  of  which  the  language  is  such  as  to 
comprehend  classes  of  persons,  and  whole  series  of  events.  That  the  proper 
culmination  of  what  is  written  should  be  found  in  Christ  and  the  gospel 
dispensation,  is  all  that  could  justly  be  expected.  But  of  this  it  will  be 
necessary  to  speak  more  fully,  as  it  touches  on  a  more  profound  and  hidden 
application  of  Old  Testament  things  to  those  of  the  New.  There  were  other 
parts  also  of  our  Lord's  personal  teaching  which  still  more  strikingly  bore  on 
such  an  application,  but  which,  from  their  enigmatical  character,  we  have 
purposely  omitted  referring  to  in  this  section.  Meanwhile,  in  those  more 
obvious  and  direct  references  which  have  chiefly  passed  under  our  review, 
what  a  body  of  well-selected  proof  has  our  Lord  given  from  the  prophecies 
of  the  Old  Testament,  to  the  truth  of  His  own  Messiahship  1  And  how  cleaz 
and  penetrating  an  insight  did  He  exhibit  into  the  meaning  of  those  proph- 
ecies, compared  with  what  then  prevailed  among  His  countrymen ! 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  373 

OL — THE   DEEPER   PRINCIPLES   INVOLVED  IN  CHRIST'S   USB  OP  THE  OLD 

TESTAMENT. 

We  have  seen  that  nearly  all  the  prophecies  of  Old  Testament  Scripture, 
which  our  Lord  applied  to  Himself  and  the  affairs  of  His  kingdom,  during 
the  period  of  His  earthly  ministry,  were  such  as  admitted  of  being  so  applied 
in  their  most  direct  and  obvious  sense.  In  nothing  else  could  they  have 
found  a  proper  and  adequate  fulfilment  This  can  scarcely,  however,  be 
said  of  the  whole  of  them.  When  His  ministry  was  drawing  to  a  close,  He 
on  one  occasion  publicly,  and  on  several  occasions  with  the  disciples  privately, 
made  application  to  Himself,  and  the  things  of  His  kingdom,  of  prophecies 
which  could  not  be  said  to  bear  immediate  and  exclusive  respect  to  New 
Testament  times.  And  we  have  now  to  examine  these  later  and  more  pecu- 
liar applications  of  prophetical  Scripture,  in  order  to  perceive  the  deeper 
principles  of  connection  between  the  Old  and  the  New,  involved  in  our  Lord's 
occasional  use  of  the  word  of  prophecy. 

The  public  occasion  we  have  referred  to  was  when,  a  few  days  before  His 
death,  Christ  solemnly  pointed  the  attention  of  the  Jews  to  a  passage  in  Ps. 
cxviiL  "Did  ye  never  read,"  He  asked  (Matt.  xxi.  42),  "in  the  Scriptures, 
The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected,  the  same  is  become  the  head  of  the 
corner:  this  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  marvellous  in  our  eyes?"  Though 
Jesus  did  not  say  in  respect  to  this  psalm,  as  He  said  shortly  after  in  respect 
to  the  110th,  that  in  inditing  it  the  Psalmist  spake  through  the  Spirit  of 
Christ;  yet  both  the  question  itself  He  put  regarding  the  passage,  and  the 
personal  application  He  presently  afterwards  made  of  it,  clearly  implied 
that  He  considered  Himself  and  the  Jewish  authorities  of  His  time  to  be  dis- 
tinctly embraced  in  the  Psalmist's  announcement  And  the  same  opinion 
was  still  more  explicitly  avowed  by  the  apostle  Peter,  after  he  had  been  in- 
structed more  fully  by  Christ  respecting  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  when, 
standing  before  the  Jewish  council,  He  exclaimed,  "This  is  the  stone  which 
was  set  at  nought  by  you  builders,  which  is  become  the  head  of  the  corner  " 
(Acts  iv.  11). 

Yet  when  we  turn  to  the  psalm  itself,  the  passage  thus  quoted  and  applied 
to  Christ,  in  His  relation  to  the  Jewish  rulers,  has  the  appearance  rather  of  a 
statement  then  actually  verified  in  the  history  and  experience  of  the  covenant 
people,  than  of  a  prediction  still  waiting  to  be  fulfilled.  The  psalm  through- 
out carries  the  aspect  of  a  national  song,  in  which  priests  and  people  joined 
together  to  celebrate  the  praise  of  God,  on  some  memorable  occasion  when 
they  saw  enlargement  and  prosperity  return  after  a  period  of  depression  and 
contempt  It  was  peculiarly  an  occasion  of  this  kind,  when  the  little  rem- 
nant that  escaped  from  Babylon,  amid  singular  tokens  of  divine  favor,  found 
themselves  in  a  condition  to  set  about  the  restoration  of  God's  house  and 
kingdom  in  Jerusalem.  Indeed,  Ezra  iii.  11  seems  not  doubtfully  to  indicate 
that  the  psalm  owes  its  origin  to  that  happy  occasion,  as  we  are  there  told, 
that  when  they  met  to  lay  anew  the  foundation  of  the  temple,  the  assembled 
multitude  began  to  praise  the  Lord  in  such  strains  as  occur  at  the  commence- 
ment of  this  psalm.  There  could  not  be  a  more  seasonable  moment  for  the 
joyous  burst  of  thanksgiving  which  the  people  seem  in  the  psalm,  as  with  one 
heart  and  soul,  to  pour  forth  to  God,  on  account  of  His  distinguishing  good- 
ness in  having  rescued  them  from  the  deadly  grasp  of  their  heathen  adversa- 
ries, and  for  the  elevating  and  assured  hope  they  express  of  the  final  and 
complete  ascendency  of  His  kingdom.  Of  this,  the  eye  of  faith  was  presented 
with  an  encouraging  pledge  in  current  events.  By  a  remarkable  turn  in  God's 
providence,  the  apparently  dead  had  become  alive  again;  the  stone  rejected  by 
the  mighty  builders  of  this  world  as  worthless  and  contemptible,  was  marvel- 
lously raised  to  the  head  of  the  corner;  and,  in  connection  with  it,  a  com- 
mencement was  made,  however  feebly,  toward  the  universal  triumph  of  the 
truth  of  God  over  the  corruption  and  idolatry  of  the  world.  But  such  being 
the  natural  and  direct  purport  of  the  psalm,  how  could  the  sentiment  uttered 
in  it  concerning  the  stone  be  so  unconditionally  applied  to  Christ?  The 


THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

right  answer  to  this  question  presupposes  the  existence  of  a  peculiarly  close 
relation  between  the  commonwealth  of  Israel  and  Christ,  and  such  a  relation 
as  can  only  be  understood  aright  when  we  have  first  correctly  apprehended 
the  real  calling  and  destiny  of  Israel. 

Now,  this  was  declared  at  the  outset  by  anticipation  to  Abraham,  when  the 
Lord  said  concerning  His  seed,  that  it  should  be  blessed  and  made  a  bless- 
ing— made  so  peculiarly  the  channel  of  blessing,  that  in  it  all  the  families  of  the 
earth  were  to  be  blessed.  To  fulfil  this  high  destination,  was  the  calling  of 
Israel  as  an  elect  people.  Viewed,  therefore,  according  to  their  calling,  they 
were  the  children  of  God,  Jehovah's  first-born  (Deut.  xiv.  1;  Exod.  iv.  22); 
Jehovah  was  the  father  that  begot  them — that  is,  raised  them  into  the  con- 
dition of  a  people  possessing  a  kind  of  filial  relationship  to  Himself  (Deut. 
xxxii.  6,  18;  Jer.  xxxi.  9),  but  possessing  it  only  in  so  far  as  they  were  a  spirit- 
ual and  holy  people,  abiding  near  to  God,  and  fitted  for  executing  His  right- 
eous purposes — for  so  far  only  did  their  actual  state  correspond  with  their  4 
destination. — (Exod.  xix.  5,  6;  Deut.  xiv.  2;  Ps.  Ixxiii  15.)  For  the  most 
part,  this  correspondence  palpably  failed.  God  was  true  to  His  engagements, 
but  not  Israel  to  theirs.  He  gave  freely  to  them  of  His  goodness — gave  often 
when  He  might  have  withheld;  but  their  history  is  replete  with  backslidings 
and  apostasies,  shame  and  reproach.  Even  within  the  limits  of  Canaan,  the 
real  children  of  God — the  seed  of  blessing —were  usually  in  a  grievous  minor- 
ity; they  were,  for  the  most  part,  the  comparatively  poor,  the  afflicted,  the 
needy,  amid  multitudes  of  an  opposite  spirit — the  internal  heathen,  who 
differed  only  in  name  and  outward  position  from  the  heathen  abroad.  But 
this  very  imperfection  in  the  reality,  as  compared  with  the  idea,  was  here,  as 
in  other  things,  made  to  contribute  toward  the  great  end  in  contemplation. 
For  it  was  this  especially  that  showed  the  necessity  of  something  higher  and 
better  to  accomplish  what  was  in  prospect.  So  long  as  God  stood  related  to 
them  merely  as  He  did  or  had  done  to  their  fathers,  believers  in  Israel  felt 
that  they  had  to  wage  an  unequal  conflict,  in  which  fearful  odds  were  gen- 
erally against  them,  even  on  Israelitish  ground.  And  how  could  they  expect 
to  attain  to  a  righteousness  and  acquire  a  position  that  should  enable  them  to 
bless  the  whole  world?  For  this,  manifestly,  there  was  needed  another  and 
still  closer  union  than  yet  existed  between  Israel  and  God,— a  union  that 
should  somehow  interpenetrate  their  condition  with  the  very  power  and  suffi- 
ciency of  Godhead.  Only  if  the  relation  between  earth  and  heaven  could  be 
made  to  assume  a  more  vital  and  organic  form — only  if  the  divine  and  human, 
the  Angel  of  the  Covenant  and  the  seed  of  Abraham,  Jehovah  and  Israel,  could 
become  truly  and  personally  one — only  then  could  it  seem  possible  to  raise 
the  interest  of  righteousness  in  Israel  to  such  an  elevation  as  should  bring  the 
lofty  destination  of  Abraham's  seed  to  bless  the  world  within  the  bounds  of 
probability.  It  was  one  leading  object  of  prophecy  to  give  to  such  thoughts 
and  anticipations  a  definite  shape,  and  convert  what  might  otherwise  have 
been  but  the  vague  surmises  or  uncertain  conjectures  of  nature  into  a  distinct 
article  of  faith.  Especially  does  this  object  come  prominently  out  in  the  latter 
portion  of  Isaiah's  writings,  where,  in  a  lengthened  and  varied  discourse  con- 
cerning the  calling  and  destiny  of  Israel,  we  find  the  Lord  perpetually  turning 
from  Israel  in  one  sense  to  Israel  in  another;  from  an  Israel  full  of  imperfec- 
tion, false,  backsliding,  feeble,  and  perverse  (for  example,  in  ch.  xlii.  19,  xliii. 
22,  xlviii.  4,  Iviii.,  lix. ),  to  an  Israel  full  of  excellence  and  might,  the  beloved 
of  Jehovah,  the  very  impersonation  of  divine  life  and  goodness,  in  whom  all 
righteousness  should  be  fulfilled,  and  salvation  forever  made  sure  to  a  numer- 
ous and  blessed  offspring. — (Ch.  xlii.  1-7,  xlix.,  lii.  13-15,  liii.,  Iv.,  Ixi.  1-3.) 
So  that  what  Israel,  as  a  whole,  had  completely  failed  to  realize, — what, 
even  in  the  spiritual  portion  of  Israel,  had  been  realized  in  a  very  partial  and 
inadequate  manner, — that,  the  prophet  gave  it  to  be  understood,  was  one  day 
to  be  accomplished  without  either  failure  or  imperfection.  But  let  it  be 
marked  well  how  it  was  to  be  accomplished; — simply  by  there  being  raised  up 
in  Israel  One  who  should  link  together  in  His  mysterious  person  the  prop- 
erties of  the  seed  of  Abraham  and  the  perfections  of  Jehovah;  in  whom,  by  the 
singular  providence  of  God,  should  meet  on  the  one  side,  all  that  distinctively 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  375 

belonged  to  Israel  of  calling  and  privilege,  and  all,  on  the  other,  that  was 
needed  of  divine  power  and  sufficiency  to  make  good  the  determinate  conn* 
sel  of  Heaven  to  bless  all  the  families  of  the  earth. 

But  this  is  still  only  one,  and  what  may  be  called  the  more  general,  aspect 
of  the  matter.  Within  the  circle  of  the  chosen  seed,  a  special  arrangement 
was  from  the  first  contemplated  ^Gen.  xlix.  8-10),  and  came  at  last  to  be  actu- 
ally made,  which  was  rendered  yet  more  remarkably  subservient  to  the  design 
of  at  once  nourishing  the  expectation  of  a  Messiah,  and  exhibiting  the  differ- 
ence, the  antagonism  even,  that  should  exist  between  Him  and  the  fleshly 
Israel.  We  refer  to  the  appointment  of  a  royal  house,  in  which  Israel's  pecu- 
liar calling  to  bless  the  world  was  to  rise  to  its  highest  sphere,  and  by  which 
it  was  more  especially  to  reach  its  fulfilment.  To  render  more  clearly  mani- 
fest God's  real  purpose  in  this  respect,  He  allowed  a  false  movement  to  be 
made,  in  the  first  instance,  concerning  it,  which,  as  the  fruit  merely  of  human 
solicitation  and  device,  came  to  a  disastrous  end. '  Therefore  the  Lord  stepped 
in  to  exercise  His  choice  in  the  matter,  and  found  David,  who,  by  special  train- 
ing and  gifts,  was  prepared  to  wield  the  kingdom  for  the  LordL  So  thoroughly 
did  he  enter  into  the  Lord's  mind  in  the  matter,  and  act  as  the  Lord's  servant, 
that  the  kingdom  was  made  to  stand  in  him  as  its  living  root,  and  the  right  to 
administer  a  kingdom  of  blessing  in  the  earth  was  connected  in  perpetuity 
with  his  line. — (2  Sam.  vii. )  But  here,  again,  the  same  kind  of  results  pres- 
ently began  to  discover  themselves  as  in  the  former  case.  It  was  with  the 
utmost  difficulty  at  first,  and  never  more  than  in  the  most  imperfect  manner, 
that  David  himself,  or  any  of  his  successors,  could  succeed  in  establishing 
righteousness  and  dispensing  blessing  even  among  the  families  of  Israel. 
The  kingdom,  too,  with  all  its  imperfections,  lasted  but  for  a  brief  period, 
and  then  fell  into  hopeless  confusion.  So  that  if  the  divine  purpose  in  this 
matter  was  really  to  stand;  if  there  was  to  be  a  kingdom  of  truly  divine  char- 
acter, administered  by  the  house  of  David,  and  encompassing  the  whole  earth 
with  its  verdant  and  fruitful  boughs  (Ezek.  xyii.  22-24;  Dan.  vii.  13,  14);  it 
was  manifest  that  some  other  link  of  connection  must  be  formed,  than  any 
that  still  existed,  between  the  divine  source  and  the  earthly  possessor  of  the 
sovereignty, — a  connection  not  merely  of  delegated  authority,  but  of  personal 
contact  and  efficient  working;  on  the  one  side  humanizing  the  Deity,  and  on 
the  other  deifying  humanity.  For  not  otherwise  than  through  such  inter- 
mingling of  the  divine  and  the  human  could  the  necessary  power  be  consti- 
tuted for  establishing  and  directing  such  a  kingdom  throughout  the  nations 
of  the  earth. 

Now,  this  destined  rise  in  the  kingdom  founded  in  David,  and  its  culmina- 
tion in  a  divine-human  Head,  is  also  the  theme  of  many  prophecies.  David 
himself  took  the  lead  in  announcing  it;  for  he  already  foresaw,  through  the 
Spirit,  what  in  this  respect  would  be  required  to  verify  the  wonderful  promise 
made  to  him. — (2  Sam.  vii. ;  Ps.  ii.,  xlv.,  Ixxii.,  ex.;  also  Isa.  vii.  14,  ix.  6,  etc.) 
But  as  David  was  himself  the  root  of  this  new  order  of  things,  and  the  whole 
was  to  take  the  form  of  a  verification  of  the  word  spoken  to  him,  or  of  the 
perfectionment  of  the  germ  that  was  planted  in  him,  so  in  his  personal  history 
there  was  given  a  compendious  representation  of  the  nature  and  prospects  of 
the  kingdom.  In  the  first  brief  stage  was  exhibited  the  embryo  of  what  it 
should  ultimately  become.  Thus,  the  absoluteness  of  the  divine  choice  in 
appointing  the  king;  his  seeming  want,  but  real  possession,  of  the  qualities 
required  for  administering  the  aftairs  of  the  kingdom ;  the  growth  from  small, 
because  necessarily  spiritual,  beginnings  of  the  interests  belonging  to  it — still 
growing,  however,  in  the  face  of  an  inveterate  and  ungodly  opposition,  until 
judgment  was  brought  forth  unto  victory; — these  leading  elements  in  the 
history  of  the  first  possessor  of  the  kingdom  must  appear  again— they  must 
have  their  counterpart  in  Him  on  whom  the  prerogatives  and  blessings*  of  the 
kingdom  were  finally  to  settle.  There  was  a  real  necessity  in  the  case,  such 
as  always  exists  where  the  end  is  but  the  development  and  perfection  of  the 
beginning;  and  we  may  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  if  they  had  failed  in  Christ,  He 

1  See  at  p.  130. 


870  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCRIPTURE. 

could  not  have  been  the  anointed  King  of  David's  line,  in  whom  the  purpoM 
of  God  to  govern  and  bless  the  world  in  righteousness  was  destined  to  stand. 
Here,  again,  we  have  another  and  lengthened  series  of  predictions,  connect* 
ing  in  this  respect  the  past  with  the  future,  the  beginning  with  the  ending  (for 
example,  Ps.  xvi.,  xxii.,  xl.,  Ixix.,  cix.;  Isa.  liii;  Zech.  ix.  9,  xii.  10,  xiii.  1-7). 

Such,  then,  is  the  close  and  organic  connection  in  two  important  respects 
between  God's  purpose  concerning  Israel  and  His  purpose  in  Christ.  And  if 
we  only  keep  this  distinctly  in  view,  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  perceiving 
that  a  valid  and  satisfactory  ground  existed  for  the  application  of  Ps.  cxviii.  22 
to  Christ,  and  many  applications  of  a  similar  kind  made  both  by  Him  and  by 
the  apostles.  In  the  psalm  now  mentioned,  the  calling  and  destination  of 
Israel  to  be  blessed  and  to  bless  mankind,  notwithstanding  that  they  were  in 
themselves  so  small  in  number,  and  had  to  hold  their  ground  against  all  the 
might  and  power  of  the  world — this  is  the  theme  which  is  chiefly  unfolded 
there,  and  it  is  unfolded  in  connection  with  the  singular  manifestation  of 
divine  power  and  goodness,  which  had  even  then  given  such  a  striking  token 
of  the  full  accomplishment  of  the  design.  But  this  accomplishment,  as  we 
have  seen,  could  only  be  found  in  Christ,  in  whom  was  to  meet  what  distinct- 
ively belonged  to  Israel  on  the  one  side,  and,  on  the  other,  what  exclusively 
belongs  to  God.  In  Him,  therefore,  the  grand  theme  of  the  psalm  must 
embody  itself,  and  through  Him  reach  its  complete  realization.  He  pre-em- 
inently and  peculiarly  is  the  stone,  rejected  in  the  first  instance  by  the  car- 
nalism  of  the  world,  as  presented  in  the  Jewish  rulers,  but  at  length  raised  by 
God,  on  account  of  its  spiritual  and  divine  qualities,  to  be  the  head  of  the 
corner.  And  all  that  formerly  occurred  of  a  like  nature  in  the  history  of 
Israel  was  but  the  germ  of  what  must  again,  and  in  a  far  higher  manner,  be 
developed  in  the  work  and  kingdom  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

The  same  thing,  with  no  material  difference,  holds  of  an  entire  class  of 
passages  in  the  Psalms,  only  in  most  of  them  respect  is  chiefly  had  to  the 
covenant  made  with  the  house  of  David,  rather  than  to  the  more  general  call- 
ing and  destination  of  Israel.  Such,  for  example,  are  the  two  closely  related 
psalms,  Ixix.  and  cix.,  parts  of  which  were  first  privately  applied  by  Christ,  and 
afterwards  more  publicly  by  Peter,  to  the  case  of  Judas  (John  xv.  25;  Acts 
i.  20;  comp.  with  Ps.  Ixix.  4,  25,  cix.  3,  8);  but  to  him  only,  as  the  worst  em- 
bodiment and  most  palpable  representative  of  the  malice  and  opposition  of 
which  the  Messiah  was  the  object:  for  such  Judas  was  in  reality,  and  such 
also  is  the  kind  of  enmity  described  in  these  psalms — an  enmity  that  had 
many  abettors,  though  concentrating  itself  in  one  or  more  individuals.  Hence 
St.  Paul  applies  the  description  to  the  Jews  generally  (Rom.  xi.  9, 10).  Other 
passages  in  the  same  two  psalms  are  applied  by  the  evangelists  and  apostles 
to  Christ  (Matt,  xxvii.  34,  48;  John  ii.  17;  Rom.  xv.  3).  And  to  these  psalms 
we  may  add,  as  belonging  to  the  same  class,  Ps.  xli.,  a  verse  of  which — "  He 
that  did  eat  of  my  bread  lifted  up  his  heel  against  me  "—is  pointed  to  by  our 
Lord  as  finding  its  fulfilment  in  the  treachery  of  Judas  (John  xiii.  18);  Ps. 
xxii.,  of  which  several  similar  appropriations  are  made  concerning  Christ  (Matt. 
xxvii.  46;  John  xiv.  24,  etc.);  and  Ps.  xl.,  which  contains  the  passage  regard- 
ing the  insufficiency  of  animal  sacrifices,  and  the  necessity  of  a  sublime  act  of 
self-devotion,  quite  unconditionally  applied  to  Christ  in  Heb.  x.  4-10.  The 
references  to  these  psalms,  it  will  be  observed,  were  made  either  by  Christ, 
near  the  close  of  His  ministry,  when  seeking  to  give  the  disciples  a  deeper 
insight  into  the  bearing  of  Old  Testament  Scripture  on  gospel  times,  or  by 
the  evangelists  and  apostles  after  His  work  on  earth  was  finished,  and  all 
had  become  plain  to  them.  The  psalms  themselves  are  so  far  alike,  that  they 
are  all  the  productions  of  David,  and  productions  in  which  he,  as  the  founder 
and  root  of  the  kingdom,  endeavored,  through  the  Spirit,  out  of  the  lines  of 
his  own  eventful  history,  to  throw  a  prospective  light  on  the  more  important 
and  momentous  future.  That  his  eye  was  chiefly  upon  this  future  is  evident, 
as  well  from  the  extremity  of  the  sufferings  described,  which  greatly  exceeded 
what  David  personally  underwent  (Ps.  xxii.  8,  14-18,  Ixix.  8,  21,  cix.  24,  25), 
as  from  the  world-wide  resxilts,  the  everlasting  and  universal  benefits  that  are 
spoken  of  as  flowing  from  the  salvation  wrought,  far  beyond  any  thing  that 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  277 

David  could  have  contemplated  respecting  himself  (Ps.  xxii.  27,  xL  5,  10,  16, 
tlL  12,  box.  35).  But  still,  while  the  future  is  mainly  regarded,  it  is  seen  by 
the  Psalmist  under  the  form  and  lineaments  of  the  past;  his  own  sufferings 
and  deliverances  were  like  the  boot  from  which  he  read  forth  the  similar  but 
greater  things  to  come.  And  why  should  not  David,  who  so  clearly  foresaw 
the  brighter,  have  foreseen  also  the  darker  and  more  troubled  aspect  of  the 
future  ?  If  it  was  given  him  through  the  Spirit  to  descry,  as  the  proper  heir 
and  possessor  of  the  kingdom,  One  so  much  higher  in  nature  and  dignity 
than  himself,  that  he  felt  it  right  to  call  him  Lord  and  God  (Ps.  xlv.,  ex.), 
why  should  it  not  also  have  been  given  him  to  see  that  this  glorious  personage,  a* 
Ms  son,  should  bear  his  father's  image  alike  in  the  more  afflicting  and  troubled, 
and  in  the  better  and  more  glorious,  part  of  his  career  ?  This  is  simply  what 
David  did  see,  and  what  he  expressed  with  great  fulness  and  variety  in  the  por- 
tion of  his  writings  now  under  consideration.  And  hence  their  peculiar  form 
and  structure,  as  partaking  so  much  of  the  personal.  When  unfolding  the  more 
divine  aspect  and  relations  of  the  kingdom,  the  Psalmist  speaks  of  the  pos- 
sessor of  it  as  of  another  than  himself,  nearly  related  to  him,  but  still  different 
— higher  and  greater  (Ps.  ii.,  xlv.,  Ixxii.,  ex.).  But  when  he  discourses,  in 
the  psalms  above  referred  to,  concerning  its  more  human  aspect  and  relations, 
he  speaks  as  of  himself:  the  sufferings  to  be  borne  and  overcome  seemed  like 
a  prolongation,  or  rather  like  a  renewal  in  an  in  tenser  form,  of  his  own;  the 
father,  in  a  manner,  identifies  himself  with  the  son,  as  the  son  again,  in  allud- 
ing to  what  was  written,  identifies  himself  with  the  father;  for  so  it  behoved  to 
be— the  past  must  here  foreshadow  the  future,  and  the  future  take  its  shape 
from  the  past. 

The  view  now  given  of  this  series  of  psalms,  it  will  be  observed,  differs 
materially,  not  only  from  that  which  regards  them  as  properly  applicable  only 
to  David,  and  merely  accommodated  to  Christ  and  gospel  things,  but  also 
from  that  of  Hengstenberg  and  others,  according  to  which  the  psalms  in 
question  described  the  suffering  righteous  person  in  general,  and  apply  to 
Christ  only  in  so  far  as  He  was  pre-eminently  a  righteous  sufferer.  We  hold 
them  to  be,  in  a  much  closer  sense,  prophecies  of  Christ,  and  regard  them  as 
delineations  of  what,  in  its  full  sense,  could  only  be  expected  to  take  place  in 
Him  who  was  to  fulfil  the  calling  and  destination,  of  which  the  mere  fore- 
shadow and  announcement  was  to  be  seen  in  David.  And  this  connection 
between  David  and  Christ,  on  which  the  delineation  proceeds,  seems  to  us 
satisfactorily  to  account  for  two  peculiarities  in  the  structure  of  these  psalms, 
which  have  always  been  the  occasion  of  embarrassment  The  first  is  the  one 
already  noticed — their  being  written  as  in  the  person  of  the  Psalmist.  This 
arose  from  his  being  led  by  the  Spirit  to  contemplate  the  coming  future  as 
the  continuation  and  only  adequate  completion  of  what  pertained  to  himself — 
to  descry  the  Messiah  as  the  second  and  higher  David.  The  other  peculiarity 
is  the  mention  that  is  made  in  some  of  these  psalms  of  sin  as  belonging  to 
the  person  who  speaks  in  them;  as  in  Ps.  xL,  for  example,  where  he  confesses 
his  sins  to  be  more  in  number  than  the  hairs  of  his  head — and  that,  too,  pres- 
ently after  he  had  declared  it  to  be  his  purpose  and  delight  to  do  the  will  of 
God  in  a  way  more  acceptable  than  all  sacrifice. — This  has  been  deemed  in- 
explicable, on  the  supposition  of  Christ  being  the  speaker.  And  if  Christ 
alone,  directly  and  exclusively,  had  been  contemplated,  we  think  it  would  have 
been  inexplicable.  His  connection  with  sin  would  not  have  been  represented 
exactly  in  that  form.  But  let  the  ground  of  the  representation  be  what  we 
have  described;  let  it  be  understood  that  David  wrote  of  the  Messiah  as  the 
Son,  who,  however  higher  and  greater  than  himself,  was  still  to  be  a  kind  of 
second  self,  then  the  description  must  have  taken  its  form  from  the  history 
and  position  of  David,  and  should  be  read  as  from  that  point  of  view.  If  it  is 
true  in  some  respect  that  "things  take  the  signature  of  thought"  \Coleridgeh 
here  the  reverse  necessarily  happened — the  thought,  imaging  to  itscL"  the  futuw 
as  the  reflection  and  final  development  of  the  past,  naturally  took  the  signa- 
ture of  things;  and  sin,  with  which  the  second  as  well  as  the  first  David  had 
much  to  do  in  establishing  the  kingdom,  must  be  confessed  as  from  the  bosom 
of  the  royal  Psalmist.  It  is  merely  a  part  of  the  relatively  imperfect  natuie  of 


878  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCRIPTURE. 

all  the  representations  of  Christ's  work  and  kingdom,  which  were  unfolded 
under  the  image  and  shadow  of  past  and  inferior,  but  closely  related  circum- 
stances. And  this  imperfection  in  the  form  was  the  more  necessary  in  psalms, 
since,  being  destined  for  public  use  in  the  worship  of  God,  they  could  only 
express  such  views  and  feelings  as  the  congregation  might  be  expected  to 
sympathize  with,  and  must,  even  when  carrying  forward  the  desires  and  ex- 

Sectations  of  the  soul  to  better  things  to  come,  touch  a  chord  in  every  be- 
ever's  bosom. 

There  is,  however,  another  and  more  peculiar — indeed,  the  most  peculiar 
— application  made  by  our  Lord  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures;  but  an 
application  proceeding  on  a  quite  similar,  though  more  specific,  connection 
between  the  past  and  the  future  in  God's  kingdom.  We  refer  to  what  our 
Lord  said  after  the  transfiguration  respecting  John  the  Baptist.  Before  this, 
He  had  even  publicly  asserted  John  to  be  the  Elias  predicted  by  Malachi : 
"And  if  ye  will  receive  it,  this  is  Elias  which  was  for  to  come  I  He  that  hath 
ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear"  (Matt  xi.  14,  15).  It  was  a  profound  truth,  our 
Lord  would  have  them  to  know,  which  He  was  now  delivering — one  that  did 
not  lie  upon  the  surface,  and  could  only  be  received  by  spiritual  and  divinely- 
enlightened  souls.  This  much  is  implied  in  the  words,  "If  ye  will  receive 
it," — if  ye  have  spiritual  discernment  so  far  as  to  know  the  mind  of  God;  and 
still  more  by  the  call  that  follows,  "He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear," 
— a  call  which  is  never  uttered  but  when  something  enigmatical,  or  difficult 
to  the  natural  mind,  requires  to  be  understood.  The  disciples  themselves, 
however,  still  wanted  the  capacity  for  understanding  what  was  said,  as  they 
betrayed,  when  putting  the  question  to  Christ  after  the  transfiguration,  "Why, 
then,  do  the  scribes  say  that  Elias  must  first  come  ?  "  This  led  our  Lord  again 
to  assert  what  He  had  done  before,  and  also  to  give  some  explanation  of  the 
matter:  "And  He  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Elias  verily  cometh  first, 
and  restoreth  all  things  .  .  .  But  I  say  unto  you,  That  Elias  has  indeed 
come,  and  they  have  done  to  him  whatsoever  they  listed,  as  it  is  written  of 
him  "  (Mark  ix.  12,  13).  Here  He  so  nearly  identifies  John  with  Elias,  that 
what  had  been  recorded  of  the  one  He  considers  as  in  a  manner  written  of 
the  other;  for  certainly  the  things  that  had  happened  to  this  second  Elias 
were  no  otherwise  written  of  him,  than  as  things  of  a  similar  kind  were 
recorded  in  the  life  of  the  first.  The  essential  connection  between  the  two 
characters  rendered  the  history  of  the  one,  in  its  main  elements,  a  prophecy 
of  the  other.  If  John  had  to  do  the  work  of  Elias,  he  must  also  enter  into 
(he  experience  of  Elias;  coming  as  emphatically  the  preacher  of  repentance, 
he  must  have  trial  of  hatred  and  persecution  from  the  ungodly;  and  the 
greater  he  was  than  Elias  in  the  one  respect,  it  might  be  expected  he  should 
also  be  greater  in  the  other.  It  must,  therefore,  have  been  merely  in  regard 
to  his  commission  from  above,  that  he  was  said  to  "come  and  restore  all 
things";  for  here  again,  as  of  old,  the  sins  of  the  people — headed  at  last  by 
ti  new  Ahab  and  Jezebel,  in  Herod  and  Herodias — cut  short  the  process: 
"  They  rejected  the  counsel  of  God  against  themselves,"  and  only  in  a  very 
limited  degree  experienced  the  benefit  which  the  mission  of  John  was  in  itself 
designed  and  fitted  to  impart  Nor  could  John  have  been  the  new  Elias, 
unless,  amid  all  outward  differences,  there  had  been  such  essential  agree- 
ments as  these  between  his  case  and  that  of  his  great  predecessor. 

We  have  now  adverted  to  all  the  applications  of  Old  Testament  prophecy 
which  are  expressly  mentioned  by  the  evangelists  to  have  been  made  by  our 
Lord  to  Himself  and  gospel  times,  with  the  exception  of  a  mere  reference  in 
Matt  xxiv.  15,  to  Daniel's  "abomination  of  desolation,"  and  the  use  made 
of  Isa.  vi.  9,  10,  as  describing  the  blind  and  hardened  state  of  the  men  of  His 
own  generation,  not  less  than  of  those  of  Isaiah's.  Besides  those  passages, 
however,  expressly  quoted  and  applied  by  our  Lord,  it  is  right  to  notice,  as 
preparatory  to  the  consideration  of  what  was  done  in  this  respect  by  evan- 
gelists and  apostles,  that  He  not  unfrequently  appropriated  to  Himself,  aa 
peculiarly  true  of  Him,  the  language  and  ideas  of  the  Old  Testament;  as  when 
He  takes  the  words  descriptive  of  Jacob's  vision,  and  says  to  Nathanael, 
"Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Hereafter  ye  shall  see  heaven  open,  and 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  379 

the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  on  the  Son  of  man;"  or  when 
He  said  to  the  Jews  of  His  own  body,  "Destroy  this  temple,  and  in  three 
days  I  will  raise  it  up;"  or  when  He  speaks  of  Himself  as  going  to  be  lifted 
up  for  the  salvation  of  men,  as  the  serpent  was  lifted  up  in  the  wilderness, 
and  of  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonas  going  to  appear  again  in  Him.  Such 
appropriations  of  Old  Testament  language  and  ideas  evidently  proceeded  on 
the  ground  of  that  close  connection  between  the  Old  and  the  New  which  we 
have  endeavored  to  unfold,  as  one  that  admitted  of  being  carried  out  to  many 
particulars.  If,  therefore,  we  shall  find  the  evangelists  and  apostles  so  car- 
rying it  put,  they  have  the  full  sanction  of  Christ's  authority  as  to  the  principle 
of  their  interpretation.  And  on  the  ground  even  of  Christ's  own  expositions, 
we  may  surely  see  how  necessary  it  is,  in  explaining  Scripture,  to  keep  in 
view  the  pre-eminent  place  which  Christ  from  the  first  was  destined  to  hold 
in  the  divine  plan,  and  how  every  thing  in  the  earlier  arrangements  of  God 
tended  to  Him  as  the  grand  centre  of  the  whole.  Let  us  indeed  beware  of 
wrestling  any  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  for  the  purpose  of  finding  Christ 
whore  He  is  not  to  be  found;  but  let  us  also  beware  of  adopting  such  imper- 
fect views  as  would  prevent  us  from  finding  Him  where  He  really  is.  And 
especially  let  it  ever  be  borne  in  mind,  that  the  union  of  the  divine  and  the 
human  in  Christ,  while  in  itself  the  great  mystery  of  godliness,  is,  at  the 
same  time,  the  grand  key  to  the  interpretation  of  what  else  is  mysterious  in 
the  divine  dispensations:  and  that  in  this  stands  the  common  basis  of  what 
ancient  seers  were  taught  to  anticipate,  and  what  the  Church  now  is  in  the 
course  of  realizing. 


IV. THE   APPLICATIONS   MADE    BY  THE  EVANGELISTS  OP  OLD  TESTAMENT 

PROPHECIES. 

It  is  to  be  borne  carefully  in  mind,  then,  that  the  stream  of  Old  Testament 
prophecy  respecting  the  Messiah,  in  its  two  great  branches, — the  one  origi- 
nating in  the  calling  and  destination  of  Israel,  the  other  in  the  purpose  to 
set  up  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  blessing  for  the  world  in  the  house 
of  David, — flowed  in  the  same  direction,  and  pointed  to  the  same  great 
event  The  announcements  in  both  lines  plainly  contemplated  and  required 
an  organic  or  personal  connection  between  the  divine  and  human  natures  as 
the  necessary  condition  of  their  fulfilment;  so  that,  if  there  was  any  truth  in 
the  pretensions  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth — if  He  was  indeed  that  concentrated 
Israel,  and  that  peerless  son  of  David,  in  whom  the  two  lines  of  prophecy 
were  to  meet  and  be  carried  out  to  their  destined  completion,  the  indwelling 
of  the  divine  in  His  human  nature  must  have  existed  as  the  one  foundation  of 
the  whole  building.  That  very  truth  which  the  Jews  of  our  Lord's  time  could 
not  bear  even  to  be  mentioned  in  their  presence, — the  truth  of  His  proper 
Deity, — was  the  indispensable  preliminary  to  the  realization  of  all  that  was 
predicted.  Hence  it  is  that  the  four  evangelists,  each  in  his  own  peculiar 
way,  but  with  a  common  insight  into  the  import  of  Old  Testament  prophecy 
and  the  real  necessities  of  the  case,  all  begin  with  laying  this  foundation. 
St.  John  opens  his  narrative  with  a  formal  and  lengthened  statement  of 
Christ's  relation  to  the  Godhead,  and  broadly  asserts  that  in  Him  the  Divine 
Word  was  made  flesh.  St.  Luke  also  relates  at  length  the  circumstances  6f 
the  miraculous  conception,  and  with  the  view  evidently  of  conveying  the  im- 
pression, that  this  mode  of  being  born  into  the  world  stood  in  essential  con- 
nection with  Christ's  being,  in  the  strictest  sense,  "the  Son  of  the  Highest." 
Even  Mark,  while  observing  the  greatest  possible  brevity,  does  not  omit  the 
essential  point,  and  begins  his  narrative  with  the  most  startling  announcement 
that  ever  headed  an  historical  composition,  ' '  The  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God."  And  the  first  evangelist,  who  wrote  more  im- 
mediately for  his  Jewish  brethren,  and  continually  selects  the  points  that 
were  best  fitted  to  exhibit  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures, 
characteristically  enters  on  his  narrative  by  describing  the  circumstances  of 


880  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBTPTURR 

Christ's  miraculous  birth  as  the  necessary  fulfilment  of  one  of  the  most  mar- 
vellous prophecies  of  the  incarnation:  "Now  all  this  was  done,  that  it  might 
be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  prophet,  saying,  Behold,  a 
virgin  shall  conceive,  and  shall  bring  forth  a  son,  and  they  shall  call  His 
name  Immanuel,  which,  being  interpreted,  is,  God  with  us." 

Commentators,  it  is  well  known,  are  not  agreed  as  to  the  precise  manner 
in  which  this  prediction  should  be  applied  to  Christ;  and  not  a  few  hold  that 
it  is  to  be  understood,  in  the  first  instance,  of  an  ordinary  child  born  after  the 
usual  manner  in  the  prophet's  own  time,  and  only  in  a  secondary,  though 
higher  and  more  complete  sense,  applicable  to  the  Messiah.  Their  chief  rea- 
son for  this  is,  that  they  see  no  other  way  of  understanding  how  the  facts  an- 
nounced in  the  prophecy  could  properly  have  been  a  sign  to  Ahaz  and  his 
people,  as  they  were  expressly  called  by  the  prophet.  Without  entering  into 
the  discussion  of  this  point,  we  simply  state  it  as  our  conviction,  that  the  dif- 
ficulty felt  arises  mainly  from  a  wrong  view  of  what  is  there  meant  by  a  sign 
— as  if  the  prophet  intended  by  it  something  which  would  be  a  ground  of 
comfort  to  the  wicked  king  and  kingdom  of  Judah.  On  the  contrary,  the 
prediction  manifestly  bears  the  character  of  a  threatening  to  these,  though 
with  a  rich  and  precious  promise  enclosed  for  a  future  generation.  Between 
the  promise  of  the  child  and  its  fulfilment,  there  was  to  be  a  period  of  sweep- 
ing desolation;  for  the  child  was  to  be  born  in  a  land  which  should  yield  to 
him  "butter  and  honey," — the  spontaneous  products  of  a  desolated  region, 
as  opposed  to  one  well-peopled  and  cultivated. — Comp.  Isa.  vii.  15  with  ver. 
22;  also  Matt.  iii.  4,  where  honey  is  mentioned  as  a  portion  of  the  Baptist's 
wilderness  food. )  This  state  of  desolation  the  prophet  describes  to  the  end 
of  the  chapter  as  ready  to  fall  on  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  and  as  inevitably 
certain,  notwithstanding  that  a  present  temporary  deliverance  was  to  be 
granted  to  it;  so  that,  from  the  connection  in  which  the  promise  of  the  child 
stands,  coupled  with  the  loftiness  of  the  terms  in  which  it  is  expressed,  there 
appears  no  adequate  occasion  for  it  till  the  impending  calamities  were  over- 
past, and  the  real  Immanuel  should  come.  Indeed,  as  Dr.  Alexander  justly 
states  (on  Isa.  vii.  14),  "There  is  no  ground,  grammatical,  historical,  or  log- 
ical, for  doubt  as  to  the  main  point,  that  the  Church  in  all  ages  has  been  right 
in  regarding  the  passage  as  a  signal  and  explicit  prediction  of  the  miraculous 
conception  and  nativity  of  Jesus  Christ."  Even  Ewald,  whose  views  are  cer- 
tainly low  enough  as  to  his  mode  of  explaining  the  prediction,  yet  does  not 
scruple  to  say  that  "every  interpretation  is  false  which  does  not  admit  that 
the  prophet  speaks  of  the  coming  Messias."  (I  have  discussed  the  subject  at 
some  length  in  my  Hermeneutical  Manual,  pp.  416-26. ) 

We  have  no  hesitation,  therefore,  in  regarding  the  application  of  this  proph- 
ecy of  Isaiah  to  Christ  as  an  application  of  the  more  direct  and  obvious  kind. 
And  such  also  is  the  next  prophecy  referred  to  by  St.  Matthew, — the  proph- 
ecy of  Micah  regarding  Bethlehem  as  the  Messiah's  birthplace.  The  evan- 
gelist does  not  formally  quote  this  prophecy  as  from  himself,  but  gives  it  from 
the  mouth  of  the  chief  priests  and  scribes,  of  whom  Herod  demanded  where 
Christ  should  be  born.  The  prediction  is  so  plain,  that  there  was  no  room 
for  diversity  of  opinion  about  it.  And  as  both  the  prediction  itself,  and  its 
connection  with  Isa.  vii.  14,  have  already  been  commented  on  in  the  earlier 
part  of  this  volume  (p.  136),  there  is  no  need  that  we  should  further  refer  to 
it  here. 

Presently,  however,  we  come  in  the  second  chapter  of  St.  Matthew  to  an- 
other and  different  application  of  a  prophecy.  For,  when  relating  the  provi- 
dential circumstances  connected  with  Christ's  temporary  removal  to  Egypt, 
and  His  abode  there  till  the  death  of  Herod,  he  says  it  took  place,  "that  it 
might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  prophet,  saying,  Out 
of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  Son." — (Chap.  ii.  15. )  It  admits  of  no  doubt  that 
this  word  of  the  prophet  Hosea  was  uttered  by  him  rather  as  an  historical 
record  of  the  past,  than  as  a  prophetical  announcement  of  the  future.  It 
pointed  to  God's  faithfulness  and  love  in  delivering  Israel  from  his  place  of 
temporary  sojourn:  "  When  Israel  was  a  child,  then  I  loved  him,  and  called 
my  son  out  of  Egypt"  When  regarded  by  the  evangelists,  therefore,  as  a 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  :J81 

word  needing  to  have  its  accomplishment  in  Christ,  it  manifestly  could  not 
be  because  the  word  itself  was  prophetical,  but  only  because  the  event  it  re- 
corded was  typical.  Describing  a  prophetical  circumstance  or  event,  it  is 
hence,  by  a  very  common  figure  of  speech,  itself  called  a  prophecy;  since  what 
it  records  to  have  been  done  in  the  type,  must  again  be  done  in  the  antitype. 
And  the  only  point  of  moment  respecting  it  is,  how  could  the  calling  of  Israel 
out  of  Egypt  be  regarded  as  a  prophetical  action  in  such  a  sense,  that  it  must 
be  repeated  in  the  personal  history  of  Jesus  ? 

This  question  has  already  been  answered  by  anticipation,  as  to  its  more 
important  part,  in  the  last  section,  where  the  relation  was  pointed  out  between 
Christ  and  Israel.  This  relation  was  such  that  the  high  calling  and  destina- 
tion of  Israel  to  be  not  only  blessed,  but  also  the  channel  of  blessing  to  the 
world,  necessarily  stood  over  for  its  proper  accomplishment  till  He  should 
come  who  was  to  combine  with  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  a  child  of 
Abraham  the  essential  properties  of  the  Godhead.  All  that  could  be  done 
before  this,  was  no  more  than  the  first  feeble  sproutings  of  the  tree,  as  com- 
pared with  the  gigantic  stature  and  expansion  of  its  full  growth.  So  that, 
viewed  in  respect  to  the  purpose  and  appointment  of  God,  Israel,  in  so  far  as 
they  were  the  people  of  God,  possessed  the  beginnings  of  what  was  in  its 
completeness  to  be  developed  in  Jesus ;  they,  God's  Son  in  the  feebleness  and 
imperfection  of  infancy,  He  the  Israel  of  God  in  realized  and  concentrated 
fulness  of  blessing.  And  hence  to  make  manifest  this  connection  between 
the  Old  and  the  New,  between  Israel  in  the  lower  and  Israel  in  the  higher 
sense,  it  was  necessary  not  only  that  there  should  belong  to  Christ,  in  its 
highest  perfection,  all  that  was  required  to  fulfil  the  calling  and  destination 
of  Israel,  as  described  in  prophetic  Scripture,  but  that  there  should  also  be 
such  palpable  and  designed  correspondences  between  His  history  and  that  of 
ancient  Israel,  as  would  be  like  the  signature  of  Heaven  to  His  pretensions, 
and  the  matter-of-fact  testimony  to  His  true  Israelite  destiny:  Such  a  cor- 
respondence was  found  especially  in  the  temporary  sojourn  in  Egypt,  and 
subsequent  recall  from  it  to  the  proper  field  of  covenant  life  and  blessing.  If, 
as  our  Lord  Himself  testified,  even  the  things  that  befell  the  Elias  of  the  Old 
Testament  were  a  prophecy  in  action  of  the  similar  things  that  were  to  befall 
the  still  greater  Elias  of  the  New,  how  much  more  might  Israel's  former  expe- 
rience in  this  respect  be  taken  for  a  prophecy  of  what  was  substantially  to 
recur  in  the  so  closely  related  history  of  Jesus !  That  the  old  things  were 
thus  so  palpably  returning  again,  was  God's  sign  in  providence  to  a  slumbering 
Church,  that  the  great  end  of  the  Old  was  at  length  passing  into  fulfilment. 
It  proclaimed — and  as  matters  stood  there  was  a  moral  necessity  that  it  should 
proclaim — that  He  who  of  old  loved  Israel,  so  as  to  preserve  him  for  a  time  in 
Egypt,  and  then  called  him  out  for  the  lower  service  he  had  to  render,  was 
now  going  to  revive  His  work,  and  carry  it  forward  to  its  destined  completion 
by  that  Child  of  Hope,  to  whom  all  the  history  and  promises  of  Israel  pointed 
as  their  common  centre. 

In  such  a  case,  of  course,  when  both  the  prophecy  and  the  fulfilment  are 
deeds,  and  deeds  connected,  the  one  with  a  lower,  the  other  with  a  higher 
sphere  of  service,  there  could  only  be  a  general,  not  a  complete  and  detailed, 
agreement  There  must  be  many  differences  as  well  as  coincidences.  It  was 
so  in  the  case  of  John  the  Baptist  as  compared  with  his  prototype  Elias.  It 
was  so,  too,  with  our  Lord  in  His  temporary  connection  with  Egypt,  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  ancient  Israel.  Amid  essential  agreements  there  are  obvi- 
ous circumstantial  differences;  but  these  such  only  as  the  altered  circumstances 
of  the  case  naturally,  and  indeed  necessarily,  gave  rise  to.  Enough,  if  there 
were  such  palpable  correspondences  as  clearly  bespoke  the  same  overruling 
hand  in  Providence,  working  toward  the  accomplishment  of  the  same  great 
end  These  limitations  hold  also,  they  hold  with  still  greater  force,  in  respect 
to  the  next  application  made  by  St.  Matthew,  when  he  says  of  the  slaughter 
by  Herod  of  the  infants  at  Bethlehem,  "Then  was  fulfilled  that  which  was 
spoken  by  Jeremy  the  prophet,  saying,  In  Rama  was  there  a  voice  heard,  lam- 
entation, and  weeping,  and  great  mourning.  Rachel  weeping  for  her  children, 
and  would  not  be  comforted,  because  they  are  not"  Here  the  relation  is  not 


382  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

BO  close  between  the  Old  and  the  New  as  in  the  former  case;  and  the  words 
of  the  evangelist  imply  as  much,  when  he  puts  it  merely,  "Then  was  fulfilled," 
not  as  before,  "That  it  might  be  fulfilled."  It  is  manifest,  indeed,  that  when 
a  word  originally  spoken  respecting  an  event  at  Rama  (a  place  some  miles 
north  of  Jerusalem)  is  applied  to  another  event  which  took  place  ages  after- 
wards at  Bethlehem  (another  place  lying  to  the  south  of  it),  the  fulfilment 
meant  in  the  latter  case  must  have  been  of  an  inferior  and  secondary  kind. 
Yet  there  must  also  have  been  some  such  relation  between  the  two  events,  as 
rendered  the  one  substantially  a  repetition  of  the  other;  and  something,  too, 
in  the  whole  circumstances,  to  make  it  of  importance  that  the  connection 
between  them  should  be  marked  by  their  being  ranged  under  one  and  the 
same  prophetical  testimony. 

Now,  the  matter  may  be  briefly  stated  thus:  It  was  at  Kama,  as  we  learn 
incidentally  from  Jer.  xl.  1,  that  the  Chaldean  conqueror  of  old  assembled 
the  last  band  of  Israelitish  captives  before  sending  them  into  exile.  And 
being  a  place  within  the  territory  of  Benjamin,  the  ancestral  mother  of  the 
tribe,  Rachel,  is  poetically  represented  by  the  prophet  as  raising  a  loud  cry  of 
distress,  and  giving  way  to  a  disconsolate  grief,  because  getting  there,  as  she 
thought,  the  last  look  of  her  hapless  children,  seeing  them  ruthlessly  torn 
from  her  grasp,  and  doomed  to  an  apparently  hopeless  exile.  The  wail  was 
that  of  a  fond  mother,  whose  family  prospects  seemed  now  to  be  entirely 
blasted.  And,  amid  all  the  outward  diversities  that  existed,  the  evangelist 
descried  substantially  the  same  ground  for  such  a  disconsolate  grief  in  the 
event  at  Bethlehem.  For  here,  again,  there  was  another,  though  more  dis- 
guised enemy,  of  the  real  hope  of  Israel,  who  struck  with  relentless  severity, 
and  struck  what  was  certainly  meant  to  be  an  equally  fatal  blow.  Though  it 
was  but  a  handful  of  children  that  actually  perished,  yet,  as  among  these  the 
Child  of  Promise  was  supposed  to  be  included,  it  might  well  seem  as  if  all 
were  lost;  Rachel's  offspring,  as  the  heritage  of  God,  had  ceased  to  exist;  and 
the  new  covenant,  with  all  its  promises  of  grace  and  glory,  was  forever  buried 
in  the  grave  of  that  Son  of  the  virgin— if  so  be  that  He  had  fallen  a  victim  to 
the  ruthless  jealousy  of  the  tyrant.  So  that,  viewed  in  regard  to  the  main 
thing,  the  Chaldean  conqueror  had  again  revived  in  the  cruel  Edomite,  who 
then  held  the  government  of  Judea;  and  the  slaughter  at  Bethlehem  was,  in 
spirit  and  design,  as  fatal  a  catastrophe  as  the  sweeping  away  of  the  last  rem- 
nant of  Jews  into  the  devouring  gulf  of  Babylon.  As  vain,  therefore,  for  the 
Church  of  the  New  Testament  to  look  for  a  friend  in  Herod,  in  respect  to  the 
needed  redemption,  as  for  the  Church  of  the  Old  to  have  looked  for  such  in 
Nebuchadnezzar.  Such  is  the  instruction  briefly  contained  in  the  evangelist's 
application  of  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah;  an  instruction  much  needed  then, 
when  so  many  were  disposed  to  look  for  great  things  from  the  Herods,  instead 
of  regarding  them  as  the  deadliest  enemies  of  the  truth,  and  the  manifest  rods 
of  God's  displeasure.  The  lesson,  indeed,  was  needed  for  all  times,  that  the 
Church  might  be  warned  not  to  expect  prosperity  and  triumph  to  the  cause 
of  Christ  from  the  succor  of  ungodly  rulers  of  this  world,  but  from  God,  who 
alone  could  defend  her  from  their  ceaseless  machinations  and  violence. 

In  this  last  application  of  a  prophetic  word  by  St.  Matthew  to  the  events 
of  the  Gospel,  there  is  a  remarkable  disregard  of  external  and  superficial 
differences,  for  the  sake  of  the  more  inward  and  vital  marks  of  agreement. 
It  is  somewhat  singular,  that,  in  his  next  application,  the  reverse  seems 
rather  to  be  the  case, — a  deep  spiritual  characteristic  of  Messiah  is  connected 
with  the  mere  name  of  a  city.  The  settling  of  Joseph  and  Mary  at  Nazareth, 
it  is  said,  at  the  close  of  ch.  ii.,  took  place  "  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  by  the  prophets,  He  shall  be  called  a  Nazarene."  There  is  here 
a  preliminary  difficulty  in  regard  to  the  thing  said  to  have  been  spoken  by 
the  prophets,  which  is  not  in  so  many  words  to  be  found  in  any  prophetical 
book  of  the  Old  Testament;  and,  indeed,  from  its  being  said  to  have  been 
spoken  by  the  prophets  generally,  we  are  led  to  suppose  that  the  evangelist 
does  not  mean  to  give  us  the  precise  statement  of  any  single  prophet,  but 
rather  the  collected  sense  of  several.  He  seems  chiefly  to  refer  to  those  pas- 
sages in  Isaiah  and  Zechariah,  where  the  Messiah  was  announced  as  the  Nezer 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  383 

or  sprouting  branch  of  the  house  of  David,  pointing  to  the  unpretending  low- 
liness of  His  appearance  and  His  kingdom.  It  is  understood  that  the  town 
Nazareth  had  its  name  from  the  same  root,  and  on  account  of  its  poor  and 
despised  condition.  That  it  was  generally  regarded  with  feelings  of  contempt 
even  in  Galilee,  appears  from  the  question  of  Nathanael,  "Can  any  good 
thing  come  out  of  Nazareth?" — (John.  i.  46.)  And  it  is  quite  natural  to 
suppose  that  this  may  have  been  expressed  in  its  very  name.  So  that  the 
meaning  of  the  evangelist  here  comes  to  be,  that  the  providence  of  God  directed 
Joseph  to  Nazareth,  as  a  place  in  name,  as  well  as  general  repute,  peculiarly 
low  and  despised,  that  the  prophecies  respecting  Jesus  as  the  tender  shoot  of 
David's  stem  might  be  fulfilled.  The  meaning,  certainly,  thus  becomes  plain 
enough;  but  it  seems  strange  that  so  outward  and  comparatively  unimportant 
a  circumstance  should  be  pointed  to  as  a  fulfilment  of  prophecy.  In  this,  how- 
ever, we  are  apt  to  judge  too  much  from  the  present  advanced  position  of 
Christ's  cause  and  kingdom;  and  also  from  the  greatly  altered  tone  of  think- 
ing in  respect  to  the  significance  of  names.  The  Jews  were  accustomed  to 
mark  every  thing  by  an  appropriate  name:  with  them  the  appellations  of  men, 
towns,  and  localities  everywhere  uttered  a  sentiment  or  told  a  history.  A 
respect  to  this  prevalent  tone  of  thinking  pervades  the  whole  Gospel  narra- 
tive, and  appears  especially  in  the  names  given  to  the  place  of  Christ's  birth 
(Bethlehem,  house  of  bread),  to  the  Baptist  (John,  the  Lord's  favor),  and 
Jesus  (Saviour);  in  the  surnames  applied  by  Christ  to  Simon  (Cephas),  to 
James  and  John  (Boanerges).  So  natural  was  this  mode  of  viewing  things 
to  the  disciples,  that  the  evangelist  John  even  finds  a  significance  in  the  namo 
of  Siloam  as  connected  with  one  of  the  miracles  of  Jesus. — (Ch.  ix.  7.)  It 
was  fitly  called  Siloam,  sent,  since  one  was  now  sent  to  it  for  such  a  miracle  of 
mercy;  its  name  would  henceforth  acquire  a  new  significancy.  It  might, 
therefore,  be  perfectly  natural  for  those  who  lived  in  our  Lord's  time,  to 
attach  considerable  importance  to  the  name  of  the  town  where  He  was  brought 
up,  and  whence  He  was  to  manifest  Himself  to  Israel.  And  in  that  state  of 
comparative  infancy,  when  a  feeble  faith  and  a  low  spiritual  sense  required 
even  outward  marks,  like  finger-posts,  to  guide  th«m  into  the  right  direction, 
it  was  no  small  token  of  the  overruling  providence  of  God,  that  He  made  the 
very  name  of  Christ's  residence  point  so  distinctly  to  the  lowly  condition  in 
which  ancient  prophets  had  foretold  He  should  appear.  By  no  profound 
sagacity,  or  deep  spiritual  insight,  but  even  as  with  their  bodily  eyesight,  they 
might  behold  the  truth,  that  Jesus  was  the  predicted  JVezer,  or  tender  shoot 
of  David.  Thus  the  word  of  the  prophets  was  fulfilled  in  a  way  peculiarly 
adapted  to  the  times. 

The  same  kind  of  outwardness  and  apparent  superficiality,  but  coupled 
with  the  same  tender  consideration  and  spiritual  discernment,  discovers  itself 
in  some  of  the  other  applications  made  by  the  evangelists  of  ancient  proph- 
ecy. Thus,  in  Matt.  viii.  17,  Christ  is  said  to  have  wrought  His  n  iraculous 
cures  on  the  diseases  of  men,  "that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken 
by  Esaias  the"  prophet,  saying,  Himself  took  our  infirmities  and  bare  our 
sicknesses."  Was  this  the  whole  that  the  prophet  meant?  Was  it  even  the 
main  thing?  The  evangelist  does  not,  in  feet,  say  that  it  was:  he  merely  says 
that  Christ  was  now  engaged  in  the  work  of  which  the  prophet  spake  in  these 
words;  and  so,  indeed,  He  was.  Christ  was  sent  into  the  world  to  remove  by 
His  mediatorial  agency  the  evil  that  sin  had  brought  into  the  world.  He  be- 
gan this  work  when  He  cured  bodily  diseases,  as  these  were  the  fruits  of  sin ; 
and  the  removal  of  them  was  intended  to  serve  as  a  kind  of  ladder  to  guide 
men  to  the  higher  and  more  spiritual  part  that  still  remained  to  be  done.  It 
was  this  very  connection  which  our  Lord  Himself  marked  when  He  said  alter- 
nately to  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy,  "Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,"  and,  "  Arise, 
take  up  thy  bed  and  walk;"  it  was  as  much  as  to  say,  the  doing  of  the  one 
goes  hand  in  hand  with  the  other;  they  are  but  different  parts  of  the  same 
process.  That  Matthew  knew  well  enough  which  was  the  greater  and  more  im- 
portant part  of  the  process,  is  evident  from  the  explanation  he  records  of  the 
name  of  Jesus  (ch.  i.  21,  "He  shall  save  Hi  a  people  from  their  sins");  and 
his  reporting  such  a  declaration  of  Christ  as  this,  "The  Son  of  Man  came  to 


»Sl  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

ffire  His  life  a  ransom  for  many." — (Ch.  xx.  28.)  We  have  similar  examples 
In  John  xix.  36,  where  the  preservation  of  our  Lord's  limbs  from  violence  in 
regarded  as  a  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  in  type:  "  A  bone  of  Him  (the  Pas. 
chal  Lamb)  shall  not  be  broken:  and  in  ver.  37,  where  the  piercing  of 
Christ's  side  is  connected  with  the  prediction  in  Zechariah:  "They  shall  look 
on  Him  whom  they  pierced."  It  is  evident  that  in  both  cases  alike  the  origi- 
nal word  looked  farther  than  the  mere  outward  circumstances  here  noticed, 
and  had  respect  mainly  to  spiritual  characteristics.  But  this  evangelist,  who 
had  a  quick  eye  to  the  discerning  of  the  spiritual  in  the  external,  who  could 
even  see  in  the  slight  elevation  of  the  cross  something  that  pointed,  as  it  were, 
to  heaven  (ch.  xii.  33),  saw  also  the  hand  of  God  in  those  apparently  acci- 
dental and  superficial  distinctions  in  Christ's  crucified  body,  —  the  finger- 
mark of  Heaven,  giving  visible  form  and  expression  to  the  great  truths  they 
embodied,  that  they  might  be  the  more  readily  apprehended.  It  was  not  as 
if  these  outward  things  were  the  whole  in  his  view,  but  that  they  were  the 
Heaven-appointed  signs  and  indications  of  the  whole:  seeing  these,  he,  in  the 
simplicity  of  faith,  saw  all, — in  the  unbroken  leg,  the  all-perfect  Victim;  in 
the  pierced  side,  the  unutterable  agony  and  distress  of  the  bleeding  heart  of 
Jesus. 

We  need  do  little  more  than  refer  to  the  other  applications  made  of  Old 
Testament  prophecy  to  Jesus  by  the  evangelists.  They  are  either  applica- 
tions in  the  most  direct  and  obvious  sense  of  predictions,  that  can  be  under- 
stood of  no  other  circumstances  and  events  than  those  they  are  applied  to, 
or  applications  of  some  of  the  psalms  and  other  prophecies,  which  had  already 
been  employed  in  part  by  Christ  Himself.  Thus,  Matt  iv.  15,  16,  which  re- 
gards the  light  diffused  by  the  preaching  of  Jesus  in  the  land  of  Naphtali  and 
Zebulun  as  a  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  in  Isa.  ix.  1,  2;  Matt  xxi.  4,  John 
xii.  15,  which  connect  Christ's  riding  into  Jerusalem  on  an  ass  with  the  proph- 
ecy in  Zech.  ix.  9;  Matt  xxvii.  9,  which,  in  like  manner,  connects  the  trans- 
actions about  the  thirty  pieces  of  money  given  to  Judas  with  the  prophecy  in 
Zech.  ii.  13; — these  are  admitted  by  all  the  more  learned  and  judicious  inter- 
preters of  the  present  day  to  be  applications  of  prophecy  of  the  most  direct 
and  simple  kind.  Portions  of  Ps.  xxii. ,  and  of  Isa.  zlii.  1-4,  liii.  1,  12,  of  which 
we  have  already  had  occasion  to  speak,  in  connection  with  our  Lord's  own  use 
of  ancient  Scripture,  are  referred  to,  as  finding  their  fulfilment  in  Christ,  in 
Matt  rxvii.  35;  John  xii.  38,  40,  xix.  24;  Mark  xv.  28.  The  only  remaining 
passage  in  the  Gospels,  in  which  there  is  any  thing  like  a  peculiar  application 
of  Old  Testament  Scripture,  is  Matt  xiii.  34,  35,  where  the  evangelist  repre- 
sents our  Lord's  resorting  to  the  parabolical  method  of  instruction  as  a  fulfil- 
ment of  what  is  written  in  Ps.  Ixxviii.  2,  and  which  has  been  explained  in  the 
chapter  to  which  this  Appendix  refers.  (See  p.  140.) 

Thus  we  see  that  no  arbitrary  or  unregulated  use  is  made  by  the  evange- 
lists of  ancient  prophecy  in  regard  to  the  events  of  Gospel  history,  but  such 
only  as  evinced  a  profound  and  comprehensive  view  of  the  connection  between 
the  Old  and  the  New  in  God's  dispensations.  They  had  Christ's  own  author- 
ity for  all  they  did, — either  as  to  the  principle  on  which  their  applications 
were  made,  or  the  precise  portions  of  Scripture  applied  by  them.  And  noth- 
ing more  is  needed  to  ensure  for  them  our  entire  sympathy  and  concurrence, 
than,  first,  that  we  clearly  apprehend  the  relation  of  Christ,  as  the  God-man, 
to  the  whole  scheme  and  purposes  of  God,  and  then  that  we  realize  the  pecu- 
liar circumstances  of  the  Church  at  the  time  when  the  higher  and  more  spir- 
itual things  of  the  Gospel  began  to  take  the  place  of  those  that  were  more 
outward  and  preparatory.  The  want  of  these  has  been  the  chief  source  of  the 
embarrassment  that  has  been  experienced  on  the  subject 

V. APPLICATIONS   IN  THE   WRITINGS   OF   THE   APOSTLE   PAUL. 

No  one  can  fail  to  perceive  that  very  frequent  use  is  made  of  Old  Testa- 
ment Scripture  in  the  writings  of  the  apostle  PauL  Sometimes  the  use  he 
makes  of  it  is  quite  similar  to  that  made  by  the  apostle  Peter  in  his  epistles,— 
one,  namely,  of  simple  reference  or  aooropriation.  He  adopts  the  language 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  885 

or  Old  Testament  Scripture  as  bis  own,  as  finding  in  that  the  most  suitable 
expression  of  the  thoughts  he  wished  to  convey  (Bom.  ii  24,  x.  18,  xii.  19,  20; 
Eph.  iv.  26,  v.  14,  etc. ) ;  or  he  refers  to  the  utterances  it  contained  of  God's 
mind  and  will,  as  having  new  and  higher  exemplifications  given  to  them 
under  the  GospeL— (Bom.  i.  17;  1  Cor.  i.  19,  31;  2  Cor.  vi.  16,  17,  viiL  15, 
ix.  9,  etc. )  Of  this  latter  sort  also,  substantially,  is  the  application  he  makes 
to  Christ  in  Eph.  iv.  8,  of  a  passage  in  Ps.  IxviiL  ("He  ascended  up  on  high, 
He  led  captivity  captive,"  etc.), — a  psalm  which  is  nowhere  else  in  New  Tes- 
tament Scripture  applied  to  Christ,  nor  is  it  one  of  those  which,  from  their 
clear  and  pointed  reference  to  the  things  of  Christ's  kingdom,  are  usually 
designated  Messianic.  In  applying  the  words  of  the  psalm  to  the  ascension 
of  Christ,  and  His  subsequent  bestowal  of  divine  gifts,  the  apostle  can  hardly 
be  understood  to  mean  more  than  that  what  was  done  figuratively  and  in  an 
inferior  sense  in  the  times  of  David  by  God,  was  now  most  really  and  gloriously 
done  in  Christ. 

And  there  is  also  another  application  of  an  Old  Testament  Scripture  by  the 
apostle  Paul,  which  might,  perhaps,  without  violence  be  understood,  and  by 
some  evangelical  interpreters  is  understood,  in  a  similar  manner,  not  as  a 
direct  prophecy,  uttered  in  respect  to  Christian  times,  but  as  the  announce- 
ment of  a  principle  in  God's  dealing  with  His  ancient  people,  which  came 
again  to  be  most  strikingly  exemplified  under  the  GospeL  We  allude  to  the 
passage  in  Isa.  xxviii.  16  (combined  with  ch.  viii.  14,  15),  which  is  adduced 
by  Paul  in  Bom.  ix.  33  (as  it  is  also,  and  still  more  emphatically,  by  Peter  in 
his  first  Epistle,  ch.  ii.  7,  8)  as  bearing  upon  Christ,  and  the  twofold  effect  of 
His  manifestation  upon  the  destinies  of  men:  "  Behold,  I  lay  in  Zion  a  stone," 
etc.  We  regard  it,  however,  as  by  much  the  most  natural  method,  to  take 
the  word  of  the  prophet  there  as  a  direct  prediction  of  Gospel  times.  The 
difficulty  in  finding  a  specific  object  of  reference  otherwise,  is  itself  no  small 
proof  of  the  correctness  of  this  view, — some  understanding  it  of  the  temple, 
some  of  the  law,  others  of  Zion,  and  others  still  again  of  Hezekiah.  The 
prophet,  we  are  persuaded,  is  looking  above  and  beyond  all  these.  Contem- 
plating the  people  in  their  guilt  and  waywardness  as  engaged  in  contriving, 
by  counsels  and  projects  of  their  own,  to  secure  the  perpetuity  of  their  cove- 
nant blessings,  he  introduces  the  Lord  as  declaring  that  there  VMS  to  be  a 
secure  and  abiding  perpetuity,  but  not  by  such  vain  and  lying  devices  as 
theirs,  nor  for  the  men  who  followed  such  corrupt  courses  as  they  were  doing; 
but  God  Himself  would  lay  the  sure  and  immovable  foundation  in  Zion,  by 
means  of  which  every  humble  believer  would  find  ample  confidence  and  safety; 
while  to  the  perverse  and  unbelieving  this  also  should  become  but  a  new  oc- 
casion of  stumbling  and  perdition.  It  can  be  understood  of  nothing  properly 
but  Christ  And  we  therefore  have  no  hesitation  in  considering  the  word  as 
a  direct  prediction  of  Gospel  times,  of  which  the  only  proper  fulfilment  was 
to  be  found  in  New  Testament  history. 

It  is  not  so  much,  however,  by  way  of  simple  reference  or  application,  that 
Paul  makes  either  his  most  frequent  or  his  most  peculiar  application  of  Old 
Testament  Scripture;  he  is  more  remarkable  for  the  argumentative  use  he 
makes  of  it.  He  often  introduces  it  in  express  and  formal  citations  to  estab- 
lish his  doctrinal  positions,  or  to  show  the  entire  conformity  of  the  views  he 
unfolded  of  divine  truth  with  those  which  had  been  propounded  by  the  ser- 
vants of  God  in  former  times.  It  is  in  connection  with  this  use  of  ancient 
Scripture  by  Paul,  that  the  only  difficulties  of  any  moment  in  his  application 
of  it  are  to  be  found.  And  as  we  have  already  referred  (in  the  first  section) 
to  his  use,  in  this  respect,  of  the  historical  and  didactic  portions,  we  have  at 
present  only  to  do  with  his  employment  of  the  prophecies.  In  respect  to 
these  also,  the  subject,  in  so  far  as  it  calls  for  consideration  here,  narrows 
itself  to  a  comparatively  limited  field;  for  it  is  only  in  the  application  made 
of  a  few  prophecies,  and  these  bearing  on  the  questions  agitated  in  the  apos- 
tle's day  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  that  any  marked  peculiarity  strikes  us. 
In  saying  this,  however,  we  must  be  understood  as  leaving  out  of  view  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews;  in  which  such  a  distinctive  use  of  Old  Testament 
Scripture  is  made  as  will  require  a  separate  consideration. 

VOL.  I. — 25. 


38G  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCBIPTUKE. 

Now,  the  chief  peculiarity  is  this,  that  while  the  apostle,  in  the  portions  of 
his  writings  referred  to,  wrote  argumentatively,  and  consequently  behoved  to 
employ  his  weapons  in  the  most  unequivocal  and  uniform  manner,  he  seems 
to  vary  considerably  in  his  manner  of  handling  the  prophecies:  he  even  seems 
to  use  a  strange  freedom  with  the  literal  and  spiritual  mode  of  interpretation; 
now,  apparently,  taking  them  in  the  one,  and  now,  again,  in  the  other  sense, 
as  suited  his  convenience.  So,  at  least,  the  depredators  of  the  apostle's  influ- 
ence have  not  unfrequently  alleged  it  to  be.  But  is  it  so  in  reality  ?  The 
matter  certainly  demands  a  close  and  attentive  consideration. 

L  The  passage  that  naturally  comes  first  in  order  is  that  in  Bom.  iv.  11-16, 
where  the  apostle  refers  to  the  promises  of  blessing  made  to  Abraham,  and  in 
particular  to  the  two  declarations,  that  he  should  be  a  father  of  many  nations, 
and  should  have  a  seed  of  blessing— or  rather,  should  be  the  head  of  the  seed 
of  blessing  throughout  all  the  families  of  the  earth.  In  reasoning  upon  these 
promises,  the  object  of  the  apostle  is  plainly  to  show,  that  as  they  were  made 
to  Abraham  before  he  received  circumcision, — that  is,  while  he  was  still,  as  to 
any  legal  ground  of  distinction,  in  a  heathen  state, — so  they  bore  respect  to 
a  posterity  as  well  without  as  within  the  bounds  of  lineal  descent  and  legal 
prescription;  to  those,  indeed,  within,  but  even  there  only  to  those  who  be- 
lieved as  he  did,  and  attained  to  the  righteousness  of  faith:  and  besides  these, 
to  all  who  should  tread  "in  the  steps  of  that  faith  of  our  father  Abraham, 
which  he  had  when  still  uncircumoised. "  According,  therefore,  to  the  apos- 
tle's interpretation,  the  seed  promised  to  Abraham  in  the  original  prophecy 
was  essentially  of  a  spiritual  kind;  it  comprehended  all  the  children  of  faith, 
wherever  they  might  be  found, — as  well  the  children  of  faith  apart  from  the 
law,  as  the  children  of  faith  under  the  law.  The  justness  of  this  wide  and 
profoundly  spiritual  interpretation,  the  apostle  specially  bases,  as  we  have 
said,  on  the  time  when  circumcision — the  sign  and  seal  of  the  covenant — 
began  to  be  administered;  not  before,  but  after  the  promises  were  given. 
And  he  might  also  have  added,  as  a  collateral  argument,  the  persons  to  whom 
it  was  administered — not  to  that  portion  only  of  Abraham's  lineal  descendants, 
of  whom  the  Jews  sprung,  nor  even  to  his  lineal  descendants  alone  as  a  body; 
but  to  all  collectively  who  belonged  to  him  at  the  first  as  a  household,  and 
all  afterwards  who,  by  entering  into  the  bond  of  the  covenant,  should  seek  to 
belong  to  him. — (Ex.  xii.  48,  etc.)  What  could  more  evidently  show  that 
Abraham's  seed,  viewed  in  the  light  contemplated  in  the  promise  as  a  seed 
of  blessing,  was  to  be  pre-eminently  of  a  spiritual  nature  ?  a  seed  that  was 
only  in  part  to  be  found  among  the  corporeal  offspring  of  the  patriarch;  but, 
wherever  found,  was  to  have  for  its  essential  and  most  distinctive  character- 
istic his  faith  and  righteousness  ? 

It  is  the  positive  side  of  the  matter  that  the  apostle  seeks  to  bring  out  at 
this  stage  of  his  argument:  his  object  is  to  manifest  how  far  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment in  the  promise  reaches.  But  at  another  stage,  in  ch.  iz.  6-13,  he  exhib- 
its with  equal  distinctness  the  negative  side;  he  shows  how  the  same  spiritual 
element  excludes  from  the  promised  seed  all,  even  within  the  corporeal  descent 
and  the  outward  legal  boundary,  who  at  any  period  did  not  possess  the  faith 
and  righteousness  of  Abraham.  All  along  the  blessing  was  to  descend  through 
grace  by  faith;  and  such  as  might  be  destitute  of  these  were  not,  in  the  sense 
of  the  original  prophecy,  the  children  of  Abraham :  they  were  rather,  as  our 
Lord  expressly  called  the  Jews  of  His  day,  the  children  of  the  devil,  John 
viii.  44, — a  declaration  that  rests  on  the  same  fundamental  view  of  the  prom- 
ise as  that  unfolded  in  the  argument  of  the  apostle. 

IL  But  now,  if  we  tarn  to  another  portion  of  the  apostle's  writings, — to 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  where  he  is  substantially  handling  the  same  argu- 
ment as  to  the  alone  sufficiency  of  faith  in  the  matter  of  justification,  —we  find 
what,  at  first  sight,  appears  to  be  in  one  respect  a  quite  opposite  principle  of 
interpretation;  we  find  the  mere  letter  of  the  promise  so  much  insisted  on, 
that  even  the  word  seed,  being  in  the  singular,  is  regarded  as  limiting  it  to  an 
individual.  In  ch.  iii.  6-18  of  this  epistle,  the  argument  of  the  apostle  is  of 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN   THE  NEW.  387 

the  following  nature: — Abraham  himself  attained  to  blessing  simply  through 
faith ;  and  when  he  was  told  that  even  all  nations  should  come  to  partake  in 
his  blessing,  it  was  implied  that  they  also  should  attain  to  it  through  the  same 
faith  that  dwelt  in  him.  The  law  entered  long  after  this  promise  of  blessing 
had  been  given;  and  if  the  blessing  were  now  made  to  depend  upon  the  ful- 
filment of  the  law,  then  the  promise  would  be  virtually  disannulled.  Not 
only  so,  but  the  promise  was  expressly  made  to  Abraham's  seed,  as  of  one, 
not  as  of  many — "to  thy  seed,"  which,  says  the  apostle,  "is  Christ";  thus 
apparently  making  the  promise  point  exclusively  to  the  Messiah,  and  in  order 
to  this,  forcing  on  the  collective  noun  seed  a  properly  singular  meaning. 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  very  strange  if  the  apostle  had  actu- 
ally done  so.  For  every  one  knows,  who  is  in  the  least  degree  acquainted 
with  the  language  of  the  Old  Testament,  that  seed,  when  used  of  a  person's 
offspring,  is  always  taken  collectively;  it  never  denotes  a  single  individual, 
unless  that  individual  were  the  whole  of  the  offspring.  Educated  as  Paul 
was,  it  was  impossible  he  could  be  ignorant  of  this;  nay,  in  this  very  chapter, 
he  shows  himself  to  be  perfectly  cognizant  of  the  comprehensive  meaning  of 
the  word  seedj  and  the  drift  of  his  whole  argument  is  to  prove  that  every 
child  of  faith,  is  a  component  part  of  the  seed  promised  to  Abraham— that 
"they  which  be  of  faith  are  blessed  with  faithful  Abraham  ";  or,  as  he  again 
pnts  it  at  the  close,  "  If  ye  be  Christ's,  then  are  ye  Abraham's  seed,  and  heirs 
according  to  the  promise." 

It  is  thus  clear  as  day,  that  the  apostle  here  took  the  same  comprehensive 
view  of  the  promise  to  Abraham  that  he  did  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Romans; 
so  that  the  distinction  between  seed  and  seeds,  when  properly  understood,  can 
only  be  meant  to  draw  the  line  of  demarcation  between  one  class  of  Abra- 
ham's family  and  another — between  posterity  and  posterity.  For  though  it 
would  be  quite  against  the  ordinary  usage  to  speak  of  individuals  in  the  same 
line  as  so  many  seeds,  it  would  by  no  means  be  so  to  speak  thus  of  so  many 
distinct  lines  of  offspring;  these  might  fitly  enough  be  regarded  as  so  many 
seeds  or  posterities.  Such,  actually,  is  the  meaning  of  the  apostle  here.  In 
his  view,  Abraham's  seed  of  blessing  in  the  promise  are  his  believing  pos- 
terity,— these  alone,  and  not  the  descendants  of  Abraham  in  every  sense. 
"Had  this  latter  been  expressed  in  the  words,"  as  Tholuck  justly  remarks, 
"seeds  would  require  to  have  been  used;  as  then  only  could  it  have  been 
inferred  that  all  the  posterity  of  Abraham,  including  those  by  natural  descent, 
were  embraced.  But  since  the  singular  is  used,  this  shows  that  the  proph- 
ecy had  a  definite  posterity  in  view — namely,  a  believing  posterity.  The  Jew 
must  have  been  the  more  disposed  to  admit  this,  as  for  hiiu  also  it  would  have 
proved  too  much,  if  the  prophecy  had  been  made  to  embrace  absolutely  the 
whole  of  Abraham's  offspring.  He,  too,  would  have  wished  the  lines  by 
Ishmael  and  Esau  excluded."  So  that,  viewed  in  respect  to  the  promised 
inheritance  of  blessing,  those,  on  the  one  hand,  who  were  merely  born  after 
the  flesh,  in  the  common  course  of  nature,  were  not  reckoned  of  the  seed— 
they  were  still,  in  a  sense,  unborn,  because  they  have  wanted  the  indispens- 
able spiritual  element;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  those  are  reckoned,  who, 
though  they  want  the  natural  descent,  have  come  to  possess  the  more  impor- 
tant spiritual  affinity, — they  have  been  born  from  above,  and  have  their  stand- 
ing and  inheritance  among  the  children. 

But  if  such  be  the  import  of  the  apostle's  statement,  why,  then,  it  may  be 
asked,  does  he  in  ver.  16  so  expressly  limit  the  seed  of  blessing  to  Christ  V 
He  does  it,  we  reply,  in  the  very  same  sense  in  which  at  ver.  8  he  limited  the 
blessing  to  Abraham:  in  the  one  case,  he  identifies  Abraham  with  all  the  pos- 
terity of  blessing,  and  in  the  other  Christ;  in  both  cases  alike,  the  two  heads 
comprehend  all  who  are  bound  up  with  them  in  the  same  bundle  of  hie. 
"The  Scripture  foreseeing,"  he  says  at  ver.  8,  "that  God  would  justify  the 
heathen  through  faith,  preached  before  the  Gospel  unto  Abraham,  saying, 
•In  thee  shall  all  nations  be  blessed.'"  In  thee,  combining  the  blessing  of 
Abraham  and  all  his  spiritual  progeny  of  believers  into  compact  unity;  he,  the 
head,  and  those  who  spiritually  make  one  body  with  him,  being  viewed  to- 
gether, and  blessed  in  the  same  act  of  God,  In  like  manner,  when  at  ver.  16 


388  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

the  apostle  passes  from  the  parent  to  the  seed,  and  regards  the  seed  as  exist 
ing  simply  in  Christ,  it  is  because  he  views  Christ  as  forming  one  body  with 
His  people;  in  Him  alone  the  blessing  stands  as  to  its  ground  and  merit,  and 
in  Him,  therefore,  the  whole  seed  of  blessing  have  their  life  and  being.  So 
that  the  term  seed  is  still  used  collectively  by  the  apostle;  it  is  applied  to 
Christ,  not  as  an  individual,  but  to  Christ  as  comprehending  in  Himself  all 
who  form  with  Him  a  great  spiritual  unity, — those  who  in  this  same  chapter 
of  the  Galatians  are  said  to  have  "put  on  Christ,"  and  to  have  become  "all 
one  in  Him  "  (a  personal  mystical  unity,  ver.  27,  28).  We  find  precisely  the 
same  identification  of  Christ  and  His  people,  when  the  apostle  elsewhere  says 
of  the  Church,  that  it  is  "  His  body,  the  fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all  in  all " 
(Eph.  i.  23);  and  yet  again,  when  he  says  in  1  Cor.  xii.  12,  "As  the  body  is 
one,  and  hath  many  members,  and  all  the  members  of  that  one  body  being 
many,  are  one  body,  so  also  is  Christ," — that  is,  Christ  taken  in  connection 
with  His  Church;  He  and  they  together. 

III.  Reverting  again  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  to  that  part  of  it  in 
which  the  apostle  discusses  the  subject  of  the  present  unbelief  and  rejection, 
together  with  the  future  conversion  of  the  Jews,  chap,  ix.,  x.,  xi.,  we  find  an 
apparent  want  of  uniformity  somewhat  more  difficult  to  explain.  If  we  look 
at  one  part,  there  is  the  greatest  freeness;  but  if  at  another,  there  seems  the 
greatest  strictness  and  literality  in  the  manner  he  handles  and  applies  the 
words  of  prophecy.  In  ch.  ix.  25,  26,  he  introduces  from  Hosea,  what  was 
unquestionably  spoken  in  immediate  reference  to  ancient  Israel,  and  gives  it 
a  quite  general  application.  Speaking  of  Israel  as  now  apostate  and  rejected, 
but  afterwards  to  be  converted,  the  prophet  had  said  that  those  who  had 
been  treated  without  mercy  should  yet  obtain  mercy,  and  those  who  had  been 
called  "Not  my  people,"  should  yet  be  called  "The  children  of  the  living 
God." — (Ch.  i.  10,  ii.  23.)  This  the  apostle  adduces  in  proof  of  the  state- 
ment, that  God  was  now  calling  to  the  blessings  of  salvation  vessels  of  mercy, 
"  not  of  the  Jews  only,  but  also  of  the  Gentiles."  It  is  certainly  possible  that 
in  applying  the  words  thus,  the  apostle  did  not  mean  to  press  them  as  in  the 
strict  sense  a  prophecy  of  the  calling  and  conversion  of  the  Gentiles.  He 
may  have  referred  to  them  simply  as  exhibiting  a  display  of  divine  mercy, 
precisely  similar  in  kind  to  what  was  now  exemplified  in  the  salvation  of  the 
Gentiles;  that  is,  mercy  exercised  on  persons  who  previously  were  cut  off 
from  any  interest  in  its  provisions,  and  in  themselves  had  lost  all  claims  to 
its  enjoyment.  That  was  to  be  done,  according  to  the  prophet,  in  the  case  of 
many  in  Israel;  and  if  it  was  now  also  done  in  the  case  of  a  people  called  alike 
from  among  Jews  and  Gentiles,  it  was  no  new  thing;  it  was  but  the  old  prin- 
ciple of  the  prophecy  finding  a  new  exemplification.  Such,  perhaps,  is  all 
the  apostle  means  by  this  application  of  prophecy  to  Gospel  times. 

But  we  can  not  so  explain  another  application  made  in  the  next  chapter  of 
the  epistle.  There,  in  proof  of  the  declaration  that  "there  is  no  difference 
between  the  Jew  and  the  Greek,  the  same  Lord  over  all  being  rich  unto  all 
that  call  upon  Him,"  he  quotes  what  is  said  in  Joel  ii.  32:  "For  whosoever 
shall  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  shall  be  saved. "  As  found  in  Joel,  the 
prediction  has  throughout  an  Israelitish  aspect.  It  is  "in  Mount  Zion  and  in 
Jerusalem  "  that  the  deliverance  or  salvation  is  said  to  be  provided;  and  while 
the  Spirit  is  spoken  of  as  going  to  be  poured  out  on  "all  flesh,"  still  it  seems 
to  be  flesh  only  as  belonging  to  the  Israelitish  territory:  for  in  describing  the 
effect  of  the  outpouring,  the  prophet  says,  "Your  sons  and  your  daughters 
shall  prophesy;  your  old  men,  etc.  Referring  to  it,  therefore,  as  the  apostle 
does,  for  a  formal  proof  of  the  position,  that  there  is  no  difference  betweem 
the  Jew  and  the  Greek  in  the  matter  of  salvation,  he  must  have  considered 
the  prophet  as  simply  addressing  the  Church  of  God,  without  respect  to  the 
Jewish  element,  which  at  that  time  so  largely  entered  into  its  composition. 
He  must  have  understood  the  prophecy  as  uttered  respecting  the  visible 
Church  of  God — no  matter  of  what  element  composed,  or  how  constituted; 
otherwise  there  would  have  been  room  for  plying  him  with  the  objection,  that 
by  the  connection  the  "all  flesh,'  and  the  "every  one  that  calleth,"  should 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  389 

be  understood  of  such  only  among  the  circumcised  Jews,  not  of  those  who 
belonged  to  the  uncircumcised  Gentiles.  In  this  more  restricted  sense  St. 
Peter  plainly  applied  the  words  of  the  prediction  on  the  day  of  Pentecost;  for 
not  till  some  years  afterwards  did  he  entertain  any  thought  of  comprehending 
in  its  provisions  the  Gentiles  as  such.  Paul's  application  of-it,  therefore,  is 
much  freer  than  Peter's,  and  proceeds  on  the  ground  of  converted  Gentiles, 
not  less  than  believing  Jews,  being  interested  in  the  promises  of  salvation 
addressed  to  the  Israelitish  Church. 

We  find  also  the  same  broad  principle  of  interpretation  in  the  fourth  chap- 
ter of  Galatians,  where,  in  regard  to  the  Church  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
apostle  quotes  Isa.  liv.  1,  "Sing,  O  barren,  thou  that  didst  not  bear;  break 
forth  into  singing,  and  cry  aloud,  thou  that  didst  not  travail  with  child:  for 
more  are  the  children  of  the  desolate  than  the  children  of  the  married  wife, 
saith  the  Lord."  It  is  distinctly  as  a  proof  text  that  the  apostle  introduces 
this  passage  from  Isaiah,  prefacing  it  with  the  words,  "  for  it  is  written," — a 
proof  that  the  "Jerusalem  that  is  above,"  in  other  words,  the  real  Church,  is 
"the  mother  of  us  all"  who  are  Christians,  and  as  such  is  "free,"  the  real 
and  proper  spouse  of  the  Lord.  Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  uttering 
the  word,  the  prophet  addressed  more  immediately  the  Jewish  Church;  of  that, 
no  one  who  reads  the  prophecy  in  its  original  connection  can  entertain  the 
slightest  doubt  Hence,  according  to  the  interpretation  of  St.  Paul, -it  is  not 
the  Jewish  element  at  that  time  existing  in  the  Church  which  is  now  to  be 
respected;  it  is  simply  the  element  of  her  being  the  spouse  of  God  ("  For  thy 
Maker  is  thine  husband"),  which  consequently  gives  to  the  Church  of  the 
New  Testament,  though  formed  mainly  of  believers  from  among  the  Gentiles, 
an  equal  interest  in  the  grace  promised  in  that  prophetic  word,  with  the 
Church  as  it  was  when  composed  almost  exclusively  of  the  descendants  of 
Jacob. 

But  then  the  apostle  seems  suddenly  to  abandon  this  broad  principle  of 
prophetical  interpretation,  when  in  Bom.  xi.  26  he  comes  to  speak  of  the  future 
conversion  of  the  natural  Israel:  "And  so  (that  is,  after  the  fulness  of  the 
Gentiles  has  come  in,  till  which  blindness  in  part  has  happened  to  Israel)  all 
Israel  shall  be  saved;  as  it  is  written,  There  shall  come  out  of  Zion  the  Deliv- 
erer, and  shall  turn  away  ungodliness  from  Jacob:  for  this  is  my  covenant 
unto  them,  when  I  shall  take  away  their  sins."  Appealed  to  as  in  itself  a  suf- 
ficient proof  that  the  natural  seed  of  Israel  as  a  whole  shall  be  saved,  is  not 
this  prophecy  from  Isa.  lix.  20,  21,  here  understood  as  spoken  to  the  Jewish 
people  not  as  a  Church,  but  merely  as  a  race  ?  Are  not  those  "  in  Jacob  "  the 
fleshly  descendants  merely  of  the  patriarch,  with  the  literal  Zion  as  the  centre 
of  their  commonwealth  ?  And  if  so  here,  why  not  elsewhere  ?  Why  not  also 
in  the  prophecies  already  referred  to?  And  how,  then,  should  the  apostle 
in  them  have  made  account  only  of  the  spiritual  element-in  Israel  as  the  Church 
of  God,  and  regarded  the  natural  (as  expressed  in  the  words,  Jacob,  Zion,  Je- 
rusalem) as  but  incidental  and  temporary  ? 

Such  questions  not  unnaturally  arise  here;  and  the  rather  so,  as  the  apostle 
has  somewhat  altered  the  words  of  the  prophecy,  apparently  as  if  to  make 
them  suit  better  the  immediate  object  to  which  he  applied  it  In  the  prophet 
it  is  to  Zion,  not  out  of  it,  that  the  Redeemer  was  to  come;  and  He  was  to 
come,  not  to  turn  away  ungodliness  from  Jacob,  but  "  to  those  that  turn  from 
transgression  in  Jacob."  Such  deviations  from  the  scope  and  purport  of  the 
original  have  appeared  to  some  so  material,  that  they  have  come  to  regard  the 
apostle  here,  not  so  properly  interpreting  an  old  prediction,  as  uttering  a  pre- 
diction of  his  own,  clothed  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  familiar  language  of  an 
ancient  prophecy.  But  this  is  an  untenable  position ;  for  how  could  we,  in 
that  case,  have  vindicated  the  apostle  from  the  want  of  godly  simplicity,  using, 
as  he  must  then  have  done,  his  accustomed  formula  for  prophetical  quotations 
("  As  it  is  written  "),  only  to  disguise  and  recommend  an  announcement  prop- 
erly his  own  ? 

We  can  acquiesce  in  no  solution  of  the  difficulty  which  would  represent 
the  apostle  as  sailing  under  false  colors.  Nor  can  we  regard  the  alterations 
au  the  result  of  accident  or  forgetfulness.  They  have  manifestly  sprung  from 


390  THE  TYPOLOGY  OP  SCKIPTUKE. 

design.  The  correct  view,  both  of  the  use  made  of  the  prediction,  and  of  th« 
line  of  thought  connected  with  it,  we  take  to  be  this:  The  apostle  gives  the 
substantial  import  of  the  prophecy  in  Isaiah,  but  in  accordance  with  his  de- 
sign gives  it  also  a  more  special  direction,  and  one  that  pointed  to  the  kind  of 
fulfilment  it  must  now  be  expected  in  that  direction  to  receive.  According  to 
the  prophet,  the  Redeemer  was  to  come,  literally  for  Zion — somehow  in  its 
behalf;  and  in  the  behalf  also  of  penitent  souls  in  it— those  turning  from 
transgression.  So,  indeed,  He  had  come  already,  in  the  most  literal  and 
exact  manner,  and  the  small  remnant  who  turned  from  transgression  recog- 
nized Him  and  hailed  His  coming.  But  the  apostle  is  here  looking  beyond 
these;  he  is  looking  to  the  posterity  of  Jacob  generally,  for  whom,  in  this  and 
other  similar  predictions,  he  descries  a  purpose  of  mercy  still  in  reserve.  For 
while  he  strenuously  contends  that  the  promise  of  a  seed  of  blessing  to  Abra- 
ham, through  the  line  of  Jacob,  was  not  confined  to  the  natural  offspring,  he 
explicitly  declares  this  to  have  been  always  included— not  the  whole,  indeed, 
yet  an  elect  portion  out  of  it.  At  that  very  time,  when  so  many  were  rejected, 
he  tells  us  there  was  such  an  elect  portion;  and  there  must  still  continue  to  be 
BO,  "for  the  gifts  and  calling  of  God  are  without  repentance;"  that  is,  God 
having  connected  a  blessing  with  Abraham  and  his  seed  in  perpetuity,  He 
could  never  recall  it  again;  there  should  never  cease  to  be  some  in  whom  that 
blessing  was  realized.  But  besides,  here  also  there  must  be  a  fulness;  the 
first-fruits  of  blessing  gave  promise  of  a  coming  harvest:  and  the  fulness  of 
the  Gentiles  itself  is  a  pledge  of  it:  for  if  there  was  to  be  a  fulness  of  these 
coming  in  to  inherit  the  blessing,  because  of  the  purpose  of  God  to  bless  the 
families  of  the  earth  in  Abraham  and  his  se&l ,  how  much  more  must  there  be 
such  a  fulness  in  the  seed  itself !  The  overflowings  of  the  stream  could  not  pos- 
sibly reach  farther  than  the  direct  channel.  But  then  this  fulness,  in  the  case  of 
the  natural  Israel,  was  not  to  be  (as  they  themselves  imagined,  and  as  many 
along  with  them  still  imagine)  separate  and  apart;  as  if  by  providing  some 
channel,  or  appointing  for  them  some  place  of  their  own.  Of  this  the  apostle 
gives  no  intimation  whatever.  Nay,  on  purpose,  we  believe,  to  exclude  that 
very  idea,  he  gives  a  more  special  turn  to  the  prophecy,  so  as  to  make  it  out 
of  Zion  that  the  Redeemer  was  to  come,  and  to  turn  away  ungodliness  from 
those  in  Jacob.  For  the  old  literal  Zion,  in  the  apostle's  view,  was  now  gone; 
its  external  framework  was  presently  to  be  laid  in  ruins:  and  the  only  Zion,  in 
connection  with  which  the  Redeemer  could  henceforth  come,  was  that  Zion 
in  which  He  now  dwells,  which  is  the  same  with  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  the 
Church  of  the  New  Testament.  He  must  come  out  of  it,  at  the  same  time  that 
He  comes  for  it,  in  behalf  of  the  natural  seed  of  Jacob;  and  this  is  all  one  with 
saying  that  these  could  only  now  attain  to  blessing  in  connection  with  the 
Christian  Church ;  or,  as  the  apostle  himself  puts  it,  could  only  obtain  mercy 
through  their  mercy,  namely,  by  the  reflux  of  that  mercy  which  has  been 
bearing  in  the  fulness  of  believing  Gentiles.  Thus  alone,  now,  could  the 
prophecy  reach  its  fulfilment  in  the  case  of  the  natural  Israel  generally,  as 
the  result  of  a  Saviour's  gracious  presence  coming  forth  from  His  dwelling- 
place  in  Zion,  and  acting  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  Christian  Church. 
So  explained,  this  part  of  the  apostle's  argument  is  in  perfect  accordance 
with  his  principles  of  interpretation  and  reasoning  elsewhere;  and  it  holds  out 
the  amplest  encouragement  in  respect  to  the  good  yet  in  store  for  the  natural 
Israel.  It  holds  out  none,  indeed,  in  respect  to  the  cherished  hope  of  a  lit- 
eral re-establishment  of  their  ancient  polity.  It  rather  tends  to  discourage 
any  such  expectations;  for  the  Zion  in  connection  with  which  it  tells  us  the 
Messiah  is  to  come,  is  the  one  in  which  He  at  present  dwells — the  Zion  of  the 
New  Testament  Church;  to  which  He  can  no  longer  come,  except  at  the  same 
tithe  by  coming  out  of  it.  Let  the  Church,  therefore,  that  already  dwells  with 
Him  in  this  Zion  (Heb.  xii.  22),  go  forth  in  His  name,  and  deal  in  faith  and 
love  with  these  descendants  of  the  natural  Israel  Let  her  feel  that  the  pres- 
ence and  the  blessing  of  the  Lord  are  with  her,  that  she  may  bring  His  word 
to  bear  with  living  power  on  the  outcasts  of  Jacob,  as  well  as  on  those  ready 
to  perish  among  the  heathen.  Let  her  do  it  now,  not  waiting  for  things  that, 
if  they  shall  ever  happen,  lie  beyond,  tho.  limits  alike  of  her  responsibility  and 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  391 

her  control;  and  remembering  that,  for  any  thing  we  can  tell,  the  fulness  of 
converted  Israel  may  be  brought  about  gradually,  somewhat  like  the  fulness 
of  converted  Gentiles.  This  also  was  spoken  of  as  one  great  event  by  our 
Lord,  when  He  warned  the  Jews  that  the  Gospel  would  be  taken  from  them, 
and  given  to  a  nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof. — (Matt.  xxi.  43.) 
Yet  how  slow  and  progressive  the  accomplishment !  Converted  Jews,  step  by 
step,  diffused  the  leaven  of  the  kingdom  among  the  Gentiles,  and  converted 
Gentiles  may  have  to  do  the  part  of  similarly  diffusing  it  among  the  Jews  that 
still  remain  in  unbelief.  And  so  "  the  life  from  the  dead,"  which  the  conver- 
sion of  Israel  is  to  bring  to  the  Christian  Church,  may  be  no  single  revival 
effected  by  a  stroke,  but  a  succession  of  reviving  and  refreshing  influences 
coming  in  with  every  new  blessing  vouchsafed  to  the  means  used  for  turning 
away  ungodliness  from  Jacob. 


VI. THE    APPLICATIONS    MADE    IN    THE    EPISTLE    TO    THE    HEBREWS — 

CONCLUSION. 

Apart  altogether  from  the  doubts  which,  since  an  early  period,  have  hung 
around  the  authorship  of  this  epistle  (on  which  it  were  impossible  to  give  any 
satisfactory  deliverance  here),  there  are  peculiarities  in  the  use  made  of  Old 
Testament  Scripture,  which  call  for  separate  treatment,  whether  it  proceeded 
from  the  pen  of  St.  Paul  or  not. 

The  epistle  abounds  with  references  to  Old  Testament  Scripture,  and  with 
direct  quotations  from  it;  as  was,  indeed,  unavoidable  from  the  nature  of  the 
subject  it  discusses.  It  is  in  its  main  theme  a  reasoning  from  the  Old  to  the 
New;  not,  however,  for  the  purpose  of  proving  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ 
promised  to  the  fathers,  but  rather,  taking  for  granted  this  as  a  point  mutually 
held,  and  showing,  from  the  dignity  of  Christ's  person,  and  the  perfection  of 
His  work,  as  indicated  even  in  Old  Testament  Scripture,  the  completeness  of 
His  dispensation  in  itself,  and  the  mingled  folly  and  danger  of  keeping  up  the 
shadowy  services  of  Judaism,  which  had  lost  all  their  importance  when  their 
design  was  accomplished  in  Christ.  To  continue  still  to  adhere  to  them,  of 
necessity  betokened  at  the  very  outset  defective  views  of  the  superlative  glory 
of  Christ,  and  a  tendency  to  look  to  those  merely  temporary  representations 
of  it  for  more  than  they  were  ever  intended  to  impart;  and  the  probability  was, 
that,  if  persevered  in,  the  carnal  element  would  carry  it  entirely  over  the 
spiritual,  and  complete  shipwreck  of  the  faith  would  be  made  amid  the  dead 
observance?  of  an  obsolete  and  now  annulled  Judaism.  Such,  briefly,  is  the 
aim  and  drift  of  this  epistle ;  and  it  very  naturally  leads  us  to  expect  that  the 
author,  in  treating  the  subject,  would  make  considerable  use  of  passages  in 
Old  Testament  Scripture  bearing  on  Gospel  times;  that  he  would  lay  especial 
emphasis  on  those  passages  which  either  substantially  implied  or  expressly 
announced  the  pre-eminent  greatness  of  Christ's  person,  and  work,  and  king- 
dom; and  that  he  would  also  draw  largely  upon  the  accredited  memorials  of 
the  past  for  warnings  and  expostulations  against  the  danger  of  backsliding 
and  apostasy,  and  for  incentives  to  progress  in  the  higher  degrees  of  knowl- 
edge and  virtue.  All  this  we  might  have  expected,  and  all  this  we  find,  in  an 
epistle  full  of  doctrinal  expositions,  happily  combined  with  the  earnest  en- 
forcement of  practical  duty.  But  there  are  some  peculiarities  in  the  applica- 
tion of  Old  Testament  passages  that  appear  in  the  course  of  the  argument, 
which  are  not  to  be  met  with,  at  least  to  the  same  extent,  in  any  other  por- 
tions of  the  New  Testament,  and  which  call  for  some  explanation. 

1.  First  of  all,  there  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  mode  of  selection.  Out  of 
thirty-two  or  thirty-three  passages  in  all  that  are  quoted  from  the  Scriptures, 
no  fewer  than  sixteen,  or  one  half,  are  taken  from  the  book  of  Psalms;  and 
these,  with  only  one  or  two  exceptions  in  the  two  first  chapters,  comj  rise  all 
that  are  referred  to  as  bearing  immediately  on  the  person  or  work  of  Christ 
There  is  something  very  singular  in  this,  and  something,  we  are  disposed  to 
think,  which  should  have  a  degree  of  importance  attached  to  it  in  connection 


392  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

with  the  author's  manner  of  dealing  with  Scripture.  For  some  reason  OT 
another,  he  felt  himself,  if  not  absolutely  shut  up,  yet  practically  influenced 
to  confine  almost  entirely  his  proof  passages,  respecting  Christ  as  the  Head 
of  the  new  dispensation,  to  such  as  might  be  found  in  the  book  of  Psalms. 
What  that  reason  might  be  we  can  only  conjecture,  or  with  some  probability 
infer  from  the  nature  and  object  of  the  epistle.  Possibly  it  arose  from  the 
constant  use  made  of  the  psalter  in  the  Jewish  worship,  whereby  it  was  not 
only  rendered  more  familiar  to  the  minds  of  the  Judaizing  Christians  than  any 
other  portion  of  ancient  Scripture,  but  was  also  most  naturally  regarded  as  of 
special  authority  in  matters  connected  with  the  devotional  service  of  God.  So 
that  arguments  drawn  from  this  source  in  behalf  of  a  more  spiritual  worship, 
and  for  the  disuse  of  those  fleshly  services  with  which  it  had  been  wont  to  be 
associated,  could  scarcely  fail  to  tell  with  peculiar  force  on  the  subject  of  con- 
troversy— might  even  seem  to  come  like  a  voice  from  the  temple  itself  in  testi- 
mony against  its  antiquated  usages.  At  all  events,  the  fact  of  the  apostle's 
quotations  on  this  point  being  derived  almost  wholly  from  the  Psalms,  may 
justly  be  regarded  as  resting  on  some  important  consideration  which  it  was 
necessary  to  keep  in  view.  And  this  being  the  case,  we  should  not  so  much 
wonder  at  testimonies  respecting  Christ  being  taken  from  passages  there  where 
He  is  not  so  plainly  exhibited,  while  no  reference  is  made  to  others  in  the 
prophetical  books  of  Scripture  more  direct  and  explicit.  The  author  deemed 
it  right  to  draw  his  materials  from  a  limited  field,  and  he  naturally  pressed 
these  as  far  as  he  properly  could. 

2.  But  does  he  not  press  them  too  far  ?  Does  he  not  really  seek  for  mate- 
rials in  proof  of  Christ's  personal  or  mediatorial  greatness  where  they  are 
not  to  be  found?  So  it  has  been  supposed;  and  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
another  peculiarity  meets  us  here,  in  the  extent  to  which  the  book  of  Psalms 
is  used  in  this  epistle  for  testimonies  respecting  Christ.  Particular  psalms 
are  employed  in  the  discussion  which  are  nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament 
applied  to  Christ.  Not,  however,  it  should  be  observed,  to  the  neglect  of 
those  which  are  elsewhere  applied  to  Him ;  not  as  if  the  author  were  hunting 
for  concealed  treasures,  and  making  light  of  such  as  lay  open  to  his  view.  The 
more  remarkable  Messianic  psalms — the  2d,  the  22d,  the  40th,  the  45th,  the 
110th— are  all  referred  to  at  different  places  as  testifying  of  the  things  be- 
longing to  the  Messiah.  But  besides  these  (to  which  we  do  not  need  now  to 
refer  more  particularly),  we  find  in  the  first  chapter  alone  two  other  psalms, 
the  97th  and  the  102d,  quoted  without  a  note  of  explanation  as  portions  bear- 
ing respect  to  Christ.  Thus,  at  ver.  6,  it  is  said,  "When  He  bringeth  in  the 
first-begotten  into  the  world,  He  saith,  And  let  all  the  angels  of  God  worship 
Him,"  quoting  the  latter  clause  of  Ps.  xcvii.  7.  And  the  concluding  part  of 
Ps.  cii.  is  brought  forward  as  spoken  directly  to  the  Son:  "To  the  Son  He 
saith,  Thou,  Lord,  in  the  beginning  hast  laid  the  foundation  of  the  earth,  and 
the  heavens  are  the  works  of  Thy  hands,"  etc. 

It  should  be  carefully  remembered,  however,  in  respect  to  the  use  made 
of  such  passages,  that  the  apostle  is  not  appealing  to  them  for  the  purpose 
of  proving  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  or  that  He  who  became  the  Messiah 
in  the  fulness  of  time  originally  brought  the  universe  into  being.  The  apos- 
tle is  writing  to  persons  who  understood  and  believed  these  points, — believed 
both  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  and  that  by  Him,  as  God's  Word  and  Son, 
the  worlds  had  been  at  first  made,  as  well  as  redemption  now  accomplished 
for  a  believing  people.  The  question  was,  What  honor  and  respect  might  be 
due  to  Him  as  such  ?  and  whether  there  was  not  a  glory  in  Him  that  over- 
shadowed, and  in  a  manner  extinguished,  the  glory  of  all  preceding  revela- 
tions ?  Now,  for  this  purpose  the  passages  referred  to  were  perfectly  in  point, 
and  contained  a  testimony  which  must  have  been  quite  valid  with  behoving 
Hebrews.  According  to  their  belief  also  (in  fact,  they  could  not  have  been  in 
any  proper  sense  Christians  without  having  first  come  to  the  belief  that),  the 
Messiah  was,  as  to  His  divine  nature,  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  immediate 
agent  of  Godhead  in  the  creation  of  the  world.  Hence,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
the  word,  in  the  concluding  portion  of  the  102d  Psalm,  addressed  to  God  as 
the  Creator,  must  have  been  held  as  immediately  applicable  to  the  Son;  it  i» 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  893 

of  necessity  His  created  energy,  and  nncreated,  unchangeable  existence  that 
is  there  more  directly  celebrated.  No  one  can  doubt  this  who  kiiows  the  re- 
lation of  the  Son  to  the  Father  as  the  revealer  of  Godhead,  iu  the  works  of 
creation  and  of  providence.  And,  in  like  manner,  the  97th  Psalm ,  which  points 
to  the  manifestation  of  God's  power  and  glory  in  the  world,  as  going  to  bring 
discomfiture  on  all  the  worshippers  of  idols,  and  joy  to  the  Church: — what 
believer  can  really  doubt  that  this  was  mainly  to  be  accomplished  in  the  per- 
son and  the  work  of  Christ?  Even  Rabbinical  writers  have  understood  it  of 
Messiah.  There  is  no  other  manifestation  of  God,  either  past  or  to  come, 
fitted  to  produce  such  results  but  the  personal  manifestation  given  in  Christ; 
and  the  call  to  worship  God,  written  in  the  psalm,  was  most  properly  con- 
nected with  the  incarnation  of  the  Divine  Word.  When  by  that  event  the  First- 
begotten  was  literally  brought  into  the  world,  there  was  the  loudest  matter- 
of-fact  proclamation,  calling  upon  all  to  worship  Him.  It  was  only  then, 
indeed,  that  the  peculiar  displays  of  divine  power  and  glory  began  to  be  put 
forth,  which  the  psalm  announces;  and  the  spiritual  results  it  speaks  of  always 
appear  according  as  Christ  comes  to  be  known  and  honored  as  the  mani- 
fested God. 

But  the  use  made  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  eighth  Psalm  is  thought  by 
some  still  more  peculiar  and  difficult  of  explanation.  For  in  that  psalm  the 
glory  of  God  is  celebrated  in  the  most  general  way,  as  connected  with  the 
place  and  dignity  of  man  upon  earth;  and  how  can  it  be  produced  as  a  testi- 
mony for  Christ?  But  is  it  so  produced?  As  far  as  we  can  see,  the  apostle 
does  not  understand  what  is  written  in  that  psalm  as  pointing  at  all,  directly 
or  exclusively,  to  Christ.  He  is  answering  an  objection,  which,  though  not 
formally  proposed,  yet  was  plainly  anticipated  as  ready  to  start  up  in  the 
minds  of  his  readers,  to  what  he  had  advanced  concerning  the  divine  honor 
and  glory  due  to  Christ,  as  the  Eternal  Son  of  God.  However  He  may  be  so 
when  viewed  simply  in  respect  to  His  divine  nature,  yet,  as  known  to  us,  He 
was  a  man  like  ourselves;  yea,  a  man  compassed  about  with  infirmity,  and 
subject  to  suffering  above  the  common  lot  of  humanity:  and  might  not  the 
consideration  of  this  detract  somewhat  from  His  dignity  ?  Might  it  not  even 
be  justly  regarded  as  placing  PIT™  below  the  angels  ?  By  no  means,  says  the 
apostle,  there  is  a  glory  of  God  connected  also  with  man's  estate;  the  Psalmist 
was  filled  with  wonder  and  admiration  at  the  imperfect  indications  he  beheld 
of  it  in  his  day,  regarding  these  as  pledges  of  the  more  complete  realizations 
of  it  yet  to  come;  and  it  must  be  realized  and  perfected,  not  in  connection 
with  the  nature  of  angels,  but  in  connection  with  the  nature  of  man.  In  ally- 
ing Himself  with  man,  the  Son  of  God,  indeed,  stooped  for  a  time  below  the 
dignity  of  angels,  but  it  was  only  that  He  might  raise  manhood  to  a  higher  po- 
sition even  than  theirs;  He  made  Godhead  incarnate,  that  He  might,  in  a  man- 
ner, deify  humanity,  that  is,  raise  it  to  a  participation  in  His  own  peerless  ma- 
jesty and  fulness  of  blessing.  In  a  word,  the  lordship  of  this  world  which  from 
the  first  was  destined  for  man,  and  the  thought  of  which  filled  the  Psalmist 
with  rapture  .and  astonishment,— this,  in  all  its  perfection  and  completeness, 
is  still  to  be  the  inheritance  of  redeemed  man,  because  the  Eternal  Son,  as 
Redeemer,  has,  by  becoming  man,  secured  the  title  to  it  for  Himself  and  as 
many  as  are  joined  to  Him  by  a  living  faith.  So  that  Christ  has  lost  nothing 
of  His  proper  glory  by  assuming  the  nature  of  man,  but  has  simply  made 
provision  for  a  redeemed  people  sharing  with  Him  in  it. 

It  is  in  connection  with  this  branch  of  the  argument  also  that  the  apostle 
refers  to  a  passage  in  Isaiah,  which  has  been  thought  not  strictly  applicable 
to  Christ  It  is  Isa.  viii.  17,  18,  where  the  prophet,  in  his  own  name  or  an- 
other, says,  "I  will  wait  (or  trust)  upon  the  Lord;  behold,  I  and  the  children 
which  the  Lord  hath  given  me,  are  for  signs  and  wonders,"  etc.  The  prophet, 
it  has  been  thought,  speaks  there  of  himself,  and  of  his  own  proper  children, 
as  specially  raised  up  by  the  Lord,  to  encourage  the  people  to  trust  in  the 
divine  power  and  faithfulness  for  deliverance.  That  however,  is  by  no  means 
so  clear  as  some  would  have  it.  It  is  fully  as  probable — and  the  opinion  is 
certainly  grovdng  among  commentators — that  the  prophet  rather  rises  here 
above  himself  uid  his  children  to  those  whom  they  represented,  —to  the  Angel 


394  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

of  the  Covenant,  and  His  spiritual  seed;  for  he  says  immediately  before,  "Bind 
up  the  testimony,  seal  the  law  among  my  disciples,  and  I  will  wait,"  etc. 
Who  could  speak  thus  of  his  disciples,  and  command  the  testimony  to  be 
bound  up  ?  Surely  a  higher  than  Isaiah  is  there.  But  even  supposing  that 
the  prophet  spoke  of  himself, — supposing  that  in  what  follows,  at  least  in  the 
words  quoted  here,  he  does  speak  of  himself  and  his  own  children, — yet,  as  these 
must  unquestionably  have  been  viewed  as  personating  the  Immanuel  and  His 
spiritual  offspring,  the  passage,  even  in  that  view  of  it,  was  a  perfectly  valid 
proof  of  the  point  for  which  it  is  quoted.  It  plainly  indicates  a  oneness  of 
nature  in  the  Head  and  the  members  of  the  Lord's  covenant  people,  and  a  com- 
mon exposure  to  the  ills  of  humanity. 

3.  A  third  peculiarity,  and  one  that  has  been  thought  still  more  character- 
istic  of  the  Old  Testament  quotations  in  this  epistle  from  those  elsewhere 
made  in  the  New  Testament,  is,  that  they  are  uniformly  taken  from  the  Sep- 
tuagint  (i.  e.,  the  old  Greek  translation  of  the  Old  Testament),  even  where  that 
differs  materially  from  the  original  Hebrew.  The  New  Testament  writers 
generally,  and  the  apostle  Paul  in  particular,  very  frequently  quoted  from 
that  version,  because  it  was  in  common  use  in  the  synagogues,  and  had  ac- 
quired a  kind  of  standard  value.  But  they  also,  in  many  cases,  departed  from 
it,  when  it  did  not  give  at  least  the  general  sense  of  the  original  This,  how- 
ever, is  never  done  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews;  the  Septuagint  version  is 
almost  uniformly  quoted  from,  whether  it  gives  or  deviates  from  the  exact 
meaning.  Thus  the  words  of  the  97th  Psalm,  rendered  in  ch.  i.  6,  "Let  all 
the  angels  of  God  worship  Him,"  are  literally,  "  Worship  Him,  all  ye  gods." 
So  again  in  the  quotation  from  the  eighth  Psalm  in  the  second  chapter,  what 
is  literally,  "Thou  hast  made  him  want  a  little  of  God,"  is  given  from  the 
Septuagint,  "Thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels."  A  still 
greater  deviation  occurs  in  ch.  x.  5,  where  the  words  from  Psalm  xL,  which 
are  in  the  original,  "Mine  ears  hast  Thou  bored,"  or  opened,  stand  thus,  "A 
body  hast  thou  prepared  me."  And  once  more,  a  passage  taken  from  Hab- 
akkuk,  in  chap  x.  38,  which,  according  to  the  Hebrew,  is,  "Behold,  his  soul 
is  lifted  up,  it  is  not  upright  in  him,"  appears  in  the  much  altered  form  of  the 
Greek  version,  "If  any  man  draw  back,  my  soul  shall  have  no  pleasure  in  him." 

We  omit  other  and  less  important  variations.  Those  we  have  adduced 
undoubtedly  show  a  close  adherence  to  the  Greek  version,  even  where  it  is 
not  strictly  correct.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  nothing  in 
the  way  of  argument  is  built  upon  the  differences  between  that  version  and 
the  original:  and  the  sentiment  it  expresses,  so  far  as  used  by  the  apostle, 
would  not  have  been  materially  affected  by  a  more  literal  translation.  Indeed 
in  the  last  instance  referred  to,  the  passage  from  the  prophet  Habakkuk  is  not 
formally  given  as  a  citation  at  all;  and  as  the  order  of  the  clauses  also  stands 
differently  in  the  epistle  from  what  it  does  in  the  Septuagint,  so  as  to  suit 
more  exactly  the  object  of  the  writer,  we  may  rather  regard  him  as  adopting 
for  his  own  what  was  found  in  the  Septuagint,  and  giving  it  the  sanction  of 
his  authority,  than  intending  to  convey  the  precise  sense  of  the  ancient  prophet 
And,  after  all,  it  is  only  a  differently  expressed,  not  by  any  means  a  discord- 
ant, sense  from  that  of  the  prophet.  The  swollen,  puffed-up  soul  is  not  up- 
right, or  does  not  maintain  the  even  course  of  integrity.  When  the  prophet 
says  this,  he  only  expresses  more  generally  what  is  more  fully  and  specifically 
intimated  by  the  apostle,  when  he  speaks  of  such  as  draw  back  in  times  of 
trial,  and  incur  thereby  the  displeasure  of  God,  The  passage  taken  from  the 
40th  Psalm  admits  of  a  similar  explanation.  The  apostle  lays  no  stress  upon 
the  words,  "  A  body  hast  Thou  prepared  me  ";  he  lays  stress  only  on  the  de- 
clared readiness  of  the  speaker  in  the  psalm  to  do  the  will  of  God,  by  a  per- 
sonal surrender  to  its  requirements;  and  as  to  say,  "Mine  ears  hast  Thou 
opened,"  means,  Thou  hast  made  me  ready  to  listen  to  all  the  demands  of 
Thy  service;  so  to  say,  "A  body  hast  thou  prepared  me,"  is  but  to  express 
the  truth  in  a  more  general  form,  and  to  intimate  that  his  body  itself  was  pro- 
vided for  the  purpose  of  yielding  the  obedience  required.  The  difference  is 
quite  a  superficial  one  as  regards  the  vein  of  thought  running  through  the 
passage.  And  such  also  is  the  case  with  the  other  quotations,  in  which  the 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  NEW.  39t 

Higels  are  substituted  for  God  or  gods.  It  is  plain  that,  in  such  expressions 
as,  "  Worship  Him,  ye  gods,"  and,  "Thou  hast  made  him  to  want  but  a  lit- 
tle of  God,"  something  else  than  the  supreme  Jehovah  is  meant  by  the  Elohim 
of  the  original, — it  must  denote  more  generally  something  divine  or  divine- 
like  in  condition  and  dignity,  whether  esteemed  such  on  earth,  or  actually 
such  in  the  heavenly  places.  And  the  angels  being  the  creatures,  nearest  to 
God  that  we  are  acquainted  with,  they  were  not  unnaturally  regarded  as  sub- 
stantially answering  to  the  idea  indicated  in  the  expression.  Many,  even  of 
the  most  learned  interpreters,  still  think  that  it  is  best  to  abide  by  the  word 
angels  in  the  passages  referred  to. 

4.  In  conclusion,  we  shall  make  only  two  remarks, — the  one  more  immedi- 
ately applicable  to  the  peculiarity  just  noticed  in  this  epistle,  and  the  other 
common  to  it  with  the  New  Testament  generally,  in  respect  to  the  use  of  the 
Old  Testament  Scriptures. 

The  first  is,  that  it  perfectly  consists  with  a  profound  regard  to  Scripture 
as  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  to  employ  a  measure  of  freedom  in  quoting  it, 
if  no  violence  is  done  to  its  general  import.  There  are  cases  in  which  much 
hangs  on  a  particular  expression;  and  in  these  cases  the  utmost  exactness  is 
necessary.  In  this  very  epistle  a  striking  example  is  furnished  of  the  preg- 
nancy of  single  words,  in  the  comment  made  upon  those  of  the  110th  Psalm, 
"  The  Lord  hath  sworn,  and  will  not  repent,  Thou  art  a  priest  forever  after 
the  order  of  Melchizedek,"  where  every  expression  is  shown  to  be  important. 
And  it  is  not  too  much  to  affirm,  from  such  specimens  of  inspired  interpreta- 
tion, that  the  very  words  of  Scripture  are  to  be  held  as  bearing  on  them  the 
stamp  of  the  Spirit's  guidance.  On  the  other  hand,  the  free  renderings  adopt- 
ed in  other  places  where  it  was  enough  to  obtain  the  general  import,  teach 
us  to  avoid  the  errors  of  superstitious  Jews  and  learned  pedants,  and  to  be 
more  anxious  to  imbibe  the  spirit  of  Scripture,  than  to  canonize  its  mere 
words  and  letters.  We  must  contend  for  every  jot  and  tittle  of  the  word, 
when  the  adversary  seeks,  by  encroaching  on  these,  to  impair  or  corrupt  the 
truth  of  God.  But  we  are  not  absolutely  bound  up  to  that;  we  may  freely 
use  even  a  general  or  incomplete  representation  of  its  meaning,  if  by  so  doing 
we  are  more  likely  to  get  a  favorable  hearing  for  the  important  truths  it  unfolds. 
Correctness  without  scrupulosity  should  be  the  rule  here,  as  in  the  Christian 
life  generally. 

Our  second  remark  is,  that  the  chief  thing  necessary  for  enabling  us  to  go 
heartily  along  with  the  applications  made,  both  here  and  elsewhere,  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  the  New,  is  a  correct  apprehension  of  the  relation  between 
the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  dispensations.  It  is  because  the  inspired  wri- 
ters went  so  much  farther  in  this  respect  than  many  of  their  readers  and  com- 
mentators are  disposed  to  do  now,  that  the  great  difficulty  is  experienced  in 
sympathizing  with  this  part  of  their  writings.  They  saw  every  thing  in  the 
Old  pointing  and  tending  towards  the  manifestation  of  God  in  Christ;  so 
that  not  only  a  few  leading  prophecies  and  more  prominent  institutions,  but 
even  subordinate  arrangements  and  apparently  incidental  notices  in  matters 
connected  with  the  ancient  economy,  were  regarded  as  having  a  significance 
in  respect  to  Christ  and  the  Gospel.  No  one  can  see  eye  to  eye  with  them  in 
this,  if  he  has  been  wont  practically  to  divorce  Christ  from  the  Old  Testament. 
And  in  proportion  as  an  intelligent  discernment  of  the  connection  between 
the  two  economies  is  acquired,  the  course  actually  adopted  by  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  will  appear  the  more  natural  and  justifiable.  Let  there  only  be 
a  just  appreciation  of  the  things  written  and  done  in  former  times,  as  prepar- 
atory to  the  better  things  to  come  in  Christ,  and  there  will  be  found  nothing 
to  offend  even  the  science  and  the  taste  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  interpretation  sanctioned  in  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament. 


APPENDIX  B. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  A  FUTURE  STATE— Pp.  177,  345. 

In  the  text  we  have  done  little  more  than  exhibit  the  somewhat  peculiai 
position  which  the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  has  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
Testament.  It  is  desirable,  however,  to  present  the  subject  in  a  fuller  light, 
and  to  consider  both  the  state  of  opinion  that  prevailed  respecting  it  in  hea- 
then antiquity,  and  the  relation  in  which  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament 
Scriptures  alike  stand  to  it.  We  shall  thus  have  an  opportunity  of  pointing 
out  several  erroneous  views,  as  we  conceive,  that  are  still  of  frequent  occur- 
rence in  discussions  upon  the  subject. 

1.  First  of  all,  we  look  to  the  general  fact— that  somehow,  and  in  some 
form  or  another,  a  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  the  soul's  immortality  has  pre- 
vailed in  nations  which  had  only  natural  resources  to  guide  them  in  their  re- 
ligious views  and  tenets.  We  are  not  aware  of  any  considerable  people,  either 
in  ancient  or  in  modern  times,  of  whom  this  might  not  be  affirmed;  and  among 
all  nations  that  have  reached  any  degree  of  intelligence  and  civilization,  it  is 
notorious  that  the  doctrine  has  always  held  a  recognized  and  prominent  place 
in  the  articles  of  popular  belief.  In  no  age  or  country  has  a  public  religion 
existed,  which  did  not  associate  with  it  the  prospect  of  a  future  state  of  hap- 
piness or  misery  as  one  of  its  leading  elements  and  most  influential  consider- 
ations. So  much  is  this  the  case,  that  the  fear  of  the  gods  in  heathen  states 
was  very  commonly  looked  upon  as  identified  with  the  expectation  of  good 
and  evil  in  a  life  after  the  present;  and  the  ancient  legislators,  who  established, 
and  the  sages  who  vindicated,  the  importance  of  religion,  with  one  consent 
agree  in  deriving  its  main  virtue  from  the  salutary  hopes  and  terrors  it  in- 
spired respecting  the  life  to  come. l  We  are  perfectly  entitled,  therefore,  from 
the  existence  and  prevalence  of  religion  among  men,  to  infer,  in  a  correspond- 
ing degree,  the  existence  and  prevalence  of  a  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  or  its  destination  in  some  form  hereafter  to  a  better  or  a  worse  state  than 
belongs  to  it  here.  And  as  nothing  ever  attains  to  the  rank  of  a  universal 
belief,  or  general  characteristic  of  mankind,  which  is  not  rooted  in  some  com- 
mon instinct  of  man's  nature,  we  may  further  assert  it  as  an  undoubted  fact, 
that  this  idea  of  a  future  state  is  one  that  springs  from  the  spiritual  instincts 
which  belong  to  man  as  man;  or,  in  the  expressive  language  of  Coleridge,  that 
"  its  fibres  are  to  be  traced  to  the  taproot  of  humanity." 

Exceptions,  no  doubt,  are  to  be  found  to  it,  even  among  those  who  exter- 
nally joined  in  the  popular  religion  of  their  country;  but  only  in  the  case  of 
persons,  or  parties,  who  were  unfavorably  situated  for  the  development  of 
their  spiritual  instincts,  and  who  have  seldom,  in  any  age  or  country,  formed 
more  than  a  small  minority  of  their  generation.  Such  an  exception,  for  ex- 
ample, appeared  in  the  case  of  the  Sadducees  in  the  latter  days  of  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth, — a  sect  small  in  point  of  numbers,  and  one  that  sprang  up, 
partly  as  a  reaction  from  the  superstitions  and  frivolities  of  Pharisaism,  and 
partly  from  the  spread  of  Grecian  culture  among  the  richer  and  more  ambi- 
tious elapses  in  Judea.  It  was  essentially  a  sect  of  philosophy,  and  had  drunk 

'  See  Warburton's  Div.  Leg.  B.  m.  B  1.  tor  the  proof  of  this:  and  Russell's  Connection.  TO) 
L  p.  308  sea. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  A  FUTURE  STATE.  39", 

too  deeply  of  the  sceptical  influences  of  heathenism  to  be  much  impressed 
with  any  religious  beliefs;  though  its  repulsion  to  Pharisaism  probably  led  it 
to  take  up  more  of  an  extreme  position  in  respect  to  them  than  it  might  oth- 
erwise have  done.  But  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  read  the  occasional 
notices  given  of  the  sect  in  Josephus,  without  perceiving  that,  as  a  party, 
they  habitually  did  violence  to  the  moral  as  well  as  the  spiritual  instincts  of 
their  nature;  that  they  exhibited  the  usual  characteristics  of  the  infidel  spirit, 
and  would  very  soon  have  ceased  even  from  the  profession  of  religion,  if  they 
had  not  been  surrounded  by  a  religious  atmosphere.  So  that  they  can  scarcely 
be  regarded  as  exceptions  to  the  natural  union  of  the  religious  sentiment  with 
the  prospect  of  an  hereafter;  for  the  religious  sentiment  had  but  a  shadowy 
existence  in  their  bosom. 

Substantially  the  same  explanation  is  to  be  given  of  the  views  entertained 
by  individual  writers,  and  by  some  whole  sects  of  heathen  philosophers. 
Their  intellectual  culture  unfitted  them  for  sympathizing  with  the  popular 
forms,  into  which  either  the  worship  of  the  gods  or  the  belief  of  a  future 
state  of  existence  had  thrown  itself.  They  saw  the  grossness  and  manifold 
absurdity  of  what  had  obtained  the  general  assent,  without  having  any  thing 
of  their  own  clearly  defined  and  thoroughly  ascertained  to  put  in  its  place; 
and  the  inevitable  result  was,  that  many  of  them  became  sceptical  on  the 
whole  subject  of  religion,  and  others  wavered  from  side  to  side  in  a  kind  of 
half  belief — sometimes  giving  utterance  to  the  hopes  and  fears  that  naturally 
sprang  from  the  conviction  of  a  Supreme  Governor,  and  again  expressing 
themselves  as  if  all  heaven  were  a  fable,  and  all  futurity  a  blank.  It  was  not 
that  nature  in  them  wanted  the  spiritual  instincts  it  seems  to  possess  in  other 
men,  or  that  these  instincts  failed  to  link  themselves  with  the  prospect  of  a 
future  existence;  but  that,  situated  as  they  were,  the  instincts  wanted  appro- 
priate forms  in  which  to  clothe  their  feelings  and  expectations,  and  thus  had 
either  to  hew  out  a  channel  of  their  own  for  faith  and  hope  to  flow  in  (which 
they  were  often  too  weak  to  do),  or  collapse  into  a  state  of  painful  uncer- 
tainty or  sceptical  disbelief. 

This  appears  to  us  both  a  fairer  and  a  more  rational  account  of  the  state  of 
opinion  prevalent  among  the  more  thoughtful  and  speculative  part  of  ancient 
heathens,  than  that  given  by  Bishop  Warburton,  and  argued  anew  in  recent 
times  by  Archbishop  Whately.  Warburton  has  labored,  with  a  great  profusion 
of  learning,  to  show  that  all  the  ancient  philosophers,  with  the  exception  of 
Socrates,  were  in  their  real  sentiments  'disbelievers  in  a  future  state  of  reward 
and  punishment,  and  only  taught  it  in  their  exoteric  writings  of  a  doctrine 
profitable  to  the  vulgar.  We  think  it  is  impossible  to  make  out  this  by  any 
fair  interpretation  of  the  better  writings  of  heathen  antiquity,  and  without 
giving  far  too  much  weight  to  the  explanations  and  statements  of  the  later 
Sophists  and  Neo-Platonists,  who  are  no  proper  authorities  on  such  ques- 
tions. The  doctrine  of  the  soul's  immortality  and  of  its  destination  to  a  fu- 
ture state  of  reward  or  punishment,  comes  out  too  frequently  in  th«  higher 
and  even  more  philosophical  productions  of  the  ancients,  to  admit  of  being 
explained  on  the  ground  of  a  mere  paltering  to  vulgar  superstition  and  preju- 
dice. And  both  the  frequency  of  its  recurrence,  and  the  variety  of  forms  in 
which  the  belief  is  uttered,  force  on  us  the  conviction  that  the  writers,  in 
uttering  it,  often  expressed  the  native  sentiments  of  their  hearts.  But  then 
the  crude  representations  and  incredible  absurdities  with  which  the  doctrine 
was  mixed  up  in  the  only  authoritative  form  known  to  them,  as  often  again 
drove  them  back  from  the  ground  they  were  inclined  to  occupy,  and  set  spec- 
ulation, with  her  daughters,  doubt  and  uncertainty,  wholly  adrift.  They 
could  not  fall  in,  heart  and  soul,  with  what  had  been  embodied  in  the  relig- 
ion of  their  country,  and  had  established  itself  in  the  popular  belief;  and  it 
was  therefore,  perfectly  natural,  that  many  inconsistencies  on  the  subject 
should  appear  in  their  writings;  that  they  should  be  found  retracting  at  one 
time  what  they  seemed  to  have  conceded  at  another;  and  that  in  their  recoil 
of  feeling  from  the  palpably  erroneous  on  one  side,  they  should  often  have 
lost  themselves  in  thick  darkness  on  the  other. 

All  this,  however,  is  to  be  understood  only  of  the  more  learned  and  specula- 


398  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBIPTUKE. 

tive  portion  of  heathen  antiquity;  of  those  who  either  formally  attached  them 
selves  to  some  sect  of  philosophy,  or  were  to  a  certain  extent  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  philosophy.  Such  persons  were  manifestly  in  the  most  unfavorable 
position  for  the  free  development  of  their  spiritual  instincts.  Policy  alone, 
or  a  sense  of  public  duty,  led  them  to  take  any  part  in  defending  the  exist- 
ence, or  in  observing  the  rites,  of  the  prevailing  religion;  so  that  they  were 
continually  doing  the  part  of  dissemblers  and  hypocrites.  But  undoubtedly, 
they  would  not  have  done  in  this  respect  what  they  did,  or  avowed  so  often 
their  belief  in  a  moral  government  above,  and  a  state  of  recompense  before 
them,  unless  these  ideas  had  been  interwoven  with  the  established  religion, 
and  had  come,  through  it,  to  pervade  the  minds  of  their  countrymen.  War- 
burton's  declarations  to  this  effect  may  be  regarded  as  substantially  correct, 
when  he  lays  down  the  position,  that  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments was  not  only  taught  and  propagated  by  lawgivers,  priests,  and  philos- 
ophers, but  was  also  universally  received  by  the  people  throughout  the  whole 
earth.1 

Dr.  Whately,  however,  who,  in  his  Essay  on  the  Revelation  of  a  Future  State, 
generally  re-echoes,  as  before  stated,  the  sentiments  of  Warburton,  expresses 
discordant  views  on  this  part  of  the  subject  He  seems  to  think  that  the  people 
generally  had  as  little  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  future  state  of  reward  and 
punishment  as  the  philosophers.  From  an  expression  in  Plato,  that  "men  in 
general  were  highly  incredulous  as  to  the  soul's  future  existence,"  he  con- 
cludes it  to  have  been  "notoriously  the  state  of  popular  opinion"  at  the  time, 
that  "the  accounts  of  Elysium  and  Tartarus  were  regarded  as  mere  poetical 
fables,  calculated  to  amuse  the  imagination,  but  unworthy  of  serious  belief." 
Let  us  test  this  conclusion  by  a  parallel  declaration  from  a  Platonic  English 
philosopher — Lord  Shaftesbury.  This  nobleman,  ridiculing  the  fear  of  future 
punishment  as  fit  at  best  only  for  the  vnlgar,  adds  regarding  others:  "Such 
is  the  nature  of  the  liberal,  polished,  and  refined  part  of  mankind;  so  far  are 
they  from  the  mere  simplicity  of  babes  and  suckluigs,  that,  instead  of  apply- 
ing the  notion  of  a  future  reward  or  punishment  to  their  immediate  behavior 
in  society,  they  are  apt  much  rather,  through  the  whole  course  of  their  lives, 
to  show  evidently  that  they  look  on  the  pious  narrations  to  be  indeed  no  better 
than  children's  teles,  and  the  amusement  of  the  mere  vulgar."2  This  is,  in 
fact,  a  far  stronger  and  more  sweeping  assertion  of  a  general  disbelief  among 
the  learned  now  regarding  the  expectation  of  a  future  state,  than  that  made 
by  Plato  of  the  generality  of  men  in  ancient  times;  but  who  would  think  of 
founding  on  such  a  statement,  though  uttered  with  the  greatest  assurance,  as 
if  no  one  could  doubt  what  was  said,  a  conclusion  as  to  the  all  but  universal 
rejection  by  educated  men  in  modern  times  of  the  Scripture  representations 
of  the  future  world?  Who  does  not  know  that  the  conclusion  would  be  no- 
toriously false  ?  But  the  inference  drawn  from  the  remark  of  Plato  rests  on 
a  still  looser  foundation.  And  indeed,  if  the  matter  had  been  as  Dr.  Whately 
represents  it,  even  in  Plato's  time,  where  should  have  been  the  temptation  to 
the  philosophers  who  lived  then  and  afterwards,  for  so  often  speaking  and 
writing  differently,  as  alleged,  from  what  they  really  thought,  respecting  the 
world  to  come  ?  They  did  so,  we  are  told,  in  accommodation  to  the  popular 
belief — that  is  (if  this  representation  were  correct),  in  accommodation  to  a 
belief  which  was  known  to  have  had  no  actual  existence. 

Dr.  Whately  lays  special  stress  in  this  part  of  his  essay  on  the  account 
given  by  Thucydides,  of  the  effects  produced  among  the  Athenians  by  the 
memorable  plague  which  ravaged  the  city  and  neighborhood.  Many  at  first, 
the  historian  tells  us,  "had  recourse  to  the  offices  of  their  religion,  with  a 
view  to  appease  the  gods;  but  when  they  found  their  sacrifices  and  ceremonies 
availed  nothing  against  the  disease,  and  that  the  pious  and  impious  alike  fell 
victims  to  it,  they  at  once  concluded  that  piety  and  impiety  were  altogethei 
indifferent,  and  cast  off  all  religious  and  moral  obligations."  "Is  it  not  evi- 
dent from  this,"  the  Archbishop  asks,  "that  those  who  did  reverence  the 
gods  had  been  accustomed  to  look  for  none  but  temporal  rewards  and  punish- 

*  Div.  Leg.  B.  III.  |  2.  t  Characteristics,  vol.  11..  p.  171 


THE  DOCTETNE  OP  A  FUTURE  STATE.  399 

monts  from  them?  Can  we  conceive  that  men  who  expected  that  virtue 
should  be  rewarded,  and  vice  punished,  in  the  other  world,  would,  just  at 
their  entrance  into  that  world,  begin  to  regard  virtue  and  vice  as  indifferent  ?  " 
We  take  this  to  be  an  entire  misappli cation  of  the  historian's  facts;  and  a 
misapplication  that  has  arisen  from  an  error  very  prevalent  among  English 
theologians,  and  shared  in  by  Archbishop  Whately,  in  the  mode  of  contem- 
plating the  doctrine  of  a  future  recompense — as  if  the  expectation  of  a  future 
were  somehow  incompatible  with  the  experience  of  a  present  recompense. 
We  shall  have  occasion  to  expose  this  error  by  and  by.  But,  meanwhile,  we 
assert  that  such  a  dissolution  of  manners  and  general  lawlessness  as  took 
place  at  Athens  under  the  awful  visitation  of  the  plague,  and.  as  always  to 
some  extent  attends  similar  calamities,  is  rather  a  proof  of  men's  expecting  a 
future  state  of  reward  and  punishment  than  the  reverse— that  is,  of  their 
doing  so  in  their  regular  and  ordinary  state  of  mind,  when  they  appear  to  pay 
some  regard  to  virtue,  and  to  wait  on  the  offices  of  religion.  The  recklessness 
of  what  may  be  called  their  abnormal  condition,  bespeaks  how  much  their  nor- 
mal one  was  under  the  restraining  and  regulating  influences  of  fear  and  hope. 

We  hold  it,  then,  as  an  established  fact,  that  the  expectation  of  a  future 
state  of  reward  and  punishment  has  been  the  general  characteristic  of  men  in 
every  age,  wherever  they  have  been  so  situated  as  to  find  free  scope  to  the 
spiritual  instincts  of  their  nature.  The  general  prevalence  alone  of  religions 
worship  is  a  proof  of  it;  for  religion,  whether  in  the  nation  or  the  individual, 
has  never  long  flourished, — it  soon  languishes  and  expires,  when  divorced 
from  the  belief  of  a  coming  state  of  happiness  or  misery.  The  expectation, 
no  doubt,  of  such  a  state,  in  all  heathen  forms  of  belief,  has  never  failed  to 
connect  itself  with  many  grievous  errors,  especially  as  to  the  mode  of  exist- 
ence in  the  future  world,  and  the  kinds  of  reward  and  punishment  that  have 
been  anticipated.  There  human  reason  and  conjecture  have  always  proved 
miserable  guides;  and  the  doctrines  of  the  metempsychosis,  souls  passing  from 
one  fleshly  form  to  another,  the  higher  doctrine  of  the  absorption  into  the  di- 
vine unity,  and  the  fables  of  Tartarus  and  Elysium,  were  but  so  many  efforts 
on  the  part  of  the  human  mind  to  give  distinct  shape  and  form  to  its  expecta- 
tions of  the  future.  These  efforts  were  necessarily  abortive.  And  the  facts 
of  the  case  will  bear  us  no  father  in  the  right  direction,  than  in  enabling  us 
to  assert  the  prevalence  of  a  widespread,  well-nigh  universal  belief  of  a  future 
existence,  mainly  depending  for  the  good  or  evil  to  be  experienced  in  it,  on 
the  conduct  maintained  during  the  present  life.  But  so  far,  we  are  thor- 
oughly satisfied,  they  do  bear  us. 

Before  leaving  this  point,  we  must  be  allowed  to  say  that  there  is  a  mani- 
fest unfairness  in  the  way  in  which  the  sentiments  of  heathen  antiquity,  espe- 
cially of  its  more  profound  thinkers,  are  very  commonly  represented  by  War- 
burton  and  his  followers.  This  is  particularly  apparent  in  the  use  that  is 
made  of  the  alleged  secret  doctrine  amongst  them.  It  can  not  be  denied  that 
their  writings  contain  strong  statements  in  favor  of  a  future  state;  but  then, 
it  is  affirmed,  these  were  only  the  writings  that  contained  their  exoteric  doc- 
trines: their  real,  or  more  strictly  philosophical  and  esoteric  doctrines,  must 
be  sought  elsewhere.  In  this  way  the  whole  argumentation  in  Plato's  Pfuxdo 
goes  for  nothing,  because  that,  it  is  alleged,  belonged  to  the  exoteric  class, 
or  his  writings  for  the  vulgar.  A  strange  sort  of  vulgar  it  must  have  been,  that 
could  be  supposed  to  enter  with  relish  into  the  line  of  argumentation  pursued 
in  that  discourse  ?  We  should  like  also,  on  that  supposition,  to  see  the  line 
described  that  separates,  as  to  form  and  style,  between  the  philosophical  and 
the  popular,  the  esoteric  and  the  exoteric,  in  ancient  writings.  But  the  ground 
for  such  a  distinction  at  all  has  been  enormously  exaggerated,  and  was  very 
much  the  invention  of  the  later  Platonists.  Recent  criticism  has  come  to  a 
different  mind:  thus,  Professor  Brandis,  in  the  article  on  Plato  in  Smith's 
Dictionary,  treats  "the  assumption  of  a  secret  doctrine  as  groundless";  and 
the  late  Professor  Butler  holds  the  division  of  Plato's  dialogues  into  exoteric 
and  esoteric  to  be  a  mere  hypothesis.— (Led.  vol.  ii.  p.  33.)  We  can  not  but 
reckon  it  unfair,  also,  in  regard  to  Cicero,  the  next  great  writer  of  antiquity 
who  has  treated  at  large  of  the  question  of  the  soul's  immortality,  to  set  against 


4CO  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

his  deliberate  and  formal  statements  on  the  subject,  a  few  occasional  sentences 
called  from  his  private  letters,  and  but  too  commonly  written  when  the  calami- 
ties of  life  had  enveloped  him  in  gloom  and  despondency.  In  the  first  book 
of  the  Tusculan  Disputations,  c.  15,  he  enunciates  both  his  own  and  the  gen- 
eral belief,  as  one  growing  out  of  the  rational  instincts  of  humanity;  and  we 
have  no  reason  to  question  the  sincerity  of  the  statement:  fiescio  quomodo, 
inhaeret  in  mentibus  quasi  seculorum  quoddam  augurium  futurorum ;  idque  in 
maximis  ingeniis,  altissimisque  animis,  el  existit  maxime,  et  apparet  facillime. 
He  ridicules,  indeed,  the  popular  belief  about  Hades,  as  contrary  to  reason, 
and  says  enough  to  indicate  how  much  of  darkness  and  uncertainty  mingled 
with  his  anticipations  of  the  future;  but  the  belief  itself  of  a  state  of  being 
after  the  present  is  never  disparaged  or  denied,  but  rather  clung  to  through- 
out. It  admits,  however,  of  no  doubt,  that  in  the  age  of  Cicero  the  general 
tone  of  society  at  Borne  among  the  more  refined  and  influential  classes  was 
deeply  tinctured  with  infidelity.  The  sceptical  spirit  of  the  later  philosophy 
of  Greece,  which  regarded  nothing  as  true,  except  that  every  thing  was  in- 
volved in  uncertainty,  had  become  extensively  prevalent  among  the  rulers  of 
the  world.  And  such  public  disclaimers  respecting  the  future  punishments 
of  Hades  as  are  to  be  found  in  Caesar's  speech  against  Catiline,  ascribed  to  him 
by  Sallust,  or  in  Cicero's  oration  for  Cluentius,  and  the  nox  est  perpetua,  una 
dormienda,  of  the  loose  but  refined  epicurean  Catullus  (on  which  Dr.  Whately 
lays  stress),  are  no  more  to  be  regarded  as  fair  indications  of  the  general  belief 
of  heathendom,  than  the  infidel  utterances  of  the  French  philosophers  of  the 
last  century  are  to  be  taken  as  just  representations  of  the  general  belief  of 
Christendom. 

2.  Let  us  proceed,  however,  in  the  next  place,  to  look  at  the  natural  grounds 
for  this  beliet 

And  here,  at  the  outset,  we  are  to  bear  in  mind  a  truth  which  is  often  veri- 
fied in  respect  to  men's  convictions  and  judgments,  as  well  in  secular  mat- 
ters as  in  those  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  kind,  viz.,  that  a  belief  may  be  cor- 
rectly formed,  or  a  fact  may  be  truly  stated,  and  yet  the  reasons  assigned  for 
it  in  individual  cases  may  be,  if  not  absolutely  wrong,  at  least  very  inade- 
quate and  inconclusive.  It  was  the  advice  of  a  learned  judge  to  a  man  of 
much  natural  shrewdness  and  sagacity,  when  appointed  to  a  judicial  function 
in  the  colonies,  to  give  his  decisions  with  firmness,  but  to  withhold  the  rea- 
sons on  which  they  were  grounded ;  for  in  all  probability  the  decisions  would 
be  right,  while  the  reasons  would  be  incapable  of  standing  a  close  examina- 
tion. We  need  not  wonder,  therefore,  if  in  the  higher  field  of  religious  thought 
and  inquiry — if,  especially,  in  respect  to  those  anticipations  which  men  are 
prompted  to  form  respecting  a  future  existence— anticipations  originating  in 
the  instincts  of  their  rational  nature,  and  nourished  by  a  great  variety  of 
thoughts  and  considerations  insensibly  working  upon  their  minds,  both  from 
within  and  from  without, — when  they  began  to  reason  out  the  matter  in  their 
own  minds,  they  should  often  have  rested  their  views  on  partial  or  erroneous 
grounds.  This  is  what  has  actually  happened,  both  in  ancient  and  in  modern 
times. ' 

If  we  look,  for  example,  into  the  most  systematic  and  far-famed  treatise 
which  has  come  down  to  us  from  heathen  antiquity  on  this  subject — the 
Phcedo  of  Plato — we  can  scarcely  help  feeling  some  surprise  at  the  manifest 
fancifulness  of  some  of  the  reasons  advanced  for  a  future  state  of  existence, 
and  their  utter  inconclusiveness  as  a  whole.  It  is  the  greatest  of  Grecian 
sages  who  is  represented  as  unfolding  them — Socrates;  Socrates,  too,  when 
on  the  very  eve  of  his  martyrdom;  and  his  thoughts  have  the  advantage  of 
being  developed  by  one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  reasoning,  and  the  very 
greatest  master  of  dialectical  skill,  of  whom  antiquity  could  boast  But  what 
are  the  arguments  adduced?  There  are  altogether  five.  The  first  is  the 
soul's  capacity  and  desire  for  knowledge,  beyond  what  it  can  ever  attain  to  in 
the  present  life:  for,  at  present,  it  is  encumbered  on  every  side  by  the  body, 
and  obliged  to  spend  a  large  portion  of  its  time  and  resources  in  providing 

*  Plato's  Reyub.  B.  I.|  6. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  A  FUTURE  STATE.  401 

for  bodily  wants;  so  that  it  can  never  penetrate,  as  it  desires,  into  the  real 
nature  and  essence  of  things,  and  "san  even  get  very  imperfectly  acquainted 
with  their  phenomenal  appearances.  Hence  the  soul  being  made  for  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge,  and  having  capacities  for  making  indefinite  progress 
in  it,  there  must  be  a  future  state  of  being  where,  in  happier  circumstances, 
the  end  of  its  being  in  this  respect  shall  be  realized.  The  second  argument 
is  from  the  law  of  contraries — according  to  which  things  in  nature  are  ever 
producing  their  opposites — rest  issuing  in  labor,  and  labor  again  in  rest — 
heat  terminating  in  cold,  and  cold  returning  to  heat — unity  resolving  itself 
into  plurality,  and  plurality  into  unity;— and  so,  since  life  terminates  in  death, 
death  must  in  turn  come  back  to  life;  not,  however,  through  the  body  which 
perishes,  but  in  the  soul  itself  that  survives  it.  Then,  thirdly,  there  are  the 
soul's  reminiscences  of  a  previous  life,  by  which  are  meant  the  ideas  which  it 
possesses  other  than  those  it  has  derived  from  the  five  senses — such  as  of 
matter  and  space,  cause  and  effect,  truth  and  duty, — ideas  which,  it  is  sup- 
posed, must  have  been  brought  by  the  soul  from  a  previous  state  of  existence; 
and  if  it  has  already  passed  out  of  one  state  of  existence  in  coming  into  this 
world,  the  natural  supposition  is,  that  in  leaving  it  the  soul  shall  again  pass 
into  another.  The  simple  and  indivisible  nature  of  the  soul  is  advanced  as  a 
fourth  argument  for  immortality; — the  soul  in  its  essence  is  not,  like  bodily 
substances,  compounded,  divisible,  and  hence  corruptible,  but  is  itself,  like 
the  ideas  it  apprehends,  immaterial,  spiritual,  incapable  of  change  or  dissolu- 
tion into  other  elements.  Then,  lastly,  there  is  the  consideration  of  the  soul's 
essential  vitality,  being  the  principle  of  life  that  animates  and  supports  the 
body,  and  which,  like  the  element  of  heat  in  material  substances,  may  leave 
its  former  habitation,  but  must  still  retain  its  own  inherent  properties — must 
be  vital  still,  though  the  body  it  has  left  necessarily  falls  into  inertness,  cor- 
ruption and  death. 

Such  are  the  arguments  advanced  in  this  celebrated  discourse  for  the  soul's 
immortality — every  one  of  them,  it  will  be  observed,  except  the  first,  of  a 
metaphysical  nature;  though  toward  the  close  a  kind  of  moral  application  is 
made  of  them,  by  urging  the  cultivation  of  mental,  as  opposed  to  sensual, 
desires  and  properties.  "On  account  of  these  things,"  Socrates  is  made  to 
say,  "a  man  ought  to  be  confident  about  his  soul,  who  during  this  life  has 
disregarded  all  the  pleasures  and  ornaments  of  the  body  as  foreign  to  his 
nature,  and  who,  having  thought  they  do  more  harm  than  good,  has  zealously 
applied  himself  to  the  acquirement  of  knowledge,  and  who,  having  adorned 
his  soul,  not  with  a  foreign,  but  with  its  own  proper  ornament,  temperance, 
justice,  fortitude,  freedom,  and  truth,  thus  waits  for  his  passage  to  Hades,  as 
one  who  is  ready  to  depart  whenever  destiny  shall  summon  him."  The 
meaning  is,  not  that  the  enjoyment  of  immortality  depends  upon  the  cultiva- 
tion of  such  tendencies  and  virtues,— for  the  reasons  are  all  derived  from  the 
soul's  inherent  nature,  and  if  good  for  any  thing  are  good  for  every  one  who 
possesses  a  soul, — but  that,  by  being  so  exercised  here,  the  soul  becomes 
ready  for  at  once  entering  on  its  better  destiny;  while  in  the  case  of  others, 
a  sort  of  purgatory  has  first  to  be  gone  through — processes  of  shame  and 
humiliation  to  detach  it  from  the  grosser  elements  that  have  gained  the 
ascendency  over  it  But  in  regard  to  the  arguments  themselves,  who  would 
jiou>  be  convinced  by  them?  There  is  manifestly  nothing  in  that  derived 
from  the  law  of  contraries;  for  in  how  many  things  does  it  not  hold?  how 
many  evils  in  nature  appear  to  issue  in  no  countervailing  good  ?  Neither  is 
there  any  thing  in  that  derived  from  the  supposed  reminiscences  of  a  former 
life — there  being  in  reality  no  such  reminiscences.  And  the  reason  found  in 
the  soul's  essential  vitality  is  a  simple  begging  of  the  question;  for,  apart 
from  what  has  appeared  of  this  in  its  connection  with  the  body,  what  is 
known  of  it?  What  proof  otherwise  exists  of  the  soul's  vitality? 

Of  the  two  remaining  arguments,  the  one  placed  in  the  soul's  simple  and 
indivisible  nature  has  often  been  revived.  Not  only  does  it  recur  in  Cicero, 
among  the  ancients,  and  in  such  modern  metaphysical  productions  as  thow 
of  Clarke  and  Cudworth ;  but  the  sagacious  Bishop  Butler  also  makes  use  of 
it  in  his  Analogy,  and  puts  it,  perhaps,  in  its  least  objectionable  form.  Dr. 

VOL.    I.— 2fi. 


402  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Thomas  Brown  even  lays  the  chief  stress  on  it:  "The  mind,"  he  contends, 
"is  a  substance,  distinct  from  the  bodily  organ,  simple,  and  incapable  of 
addition  or  substraction."  That  is  his  first  proposition;  and  his  next  is, 
"Nothing  which  we  are  capable  of  observing  in  the  universe  has  ceased  to 
exist  since  the  world  began."  The  two  together,  he  conceives,  establish  the 
conclusion,  so  far  as  analogy  can  have  influence,  that  "the  mind  does  not 
perish  in  the  dissolution  of  the  body."  And  he  adds:  "In  judging  accord- 
ing to  the  mere  light  of  nature,  it  is  on  the  immaterialism  of  the  thinking 
principle  that  I  consider  the  belief  of  its  immortality  to  be  most  reasonably 
founded;  since  the  distinct  existence  of  a  spiritual  substance,  if  that  be  ad- 
mitted, renders  it  incumbent  on  the  asserter  of  the  soul's  mortality  to  assign 
some  reason  which  may  have  led  the  only  Being  who  has  the  power  of  anni- 
hilation, to  exert  His  power  in  annihilating  the  mind,  which  He  is  said,  in 
that  case,  to  have  created  only  for  a  few  years  of  life."  As  if  there  were  here 
no  alternative  between  the  annihilation  of  the  substance  of  mind,  and  the 
destruction  of  its  existence  and  identity  as  a  living  agent  I  The  matter  of  the 
body,  it  is  true,  is  not  annihilated  at  death ;  the  particles  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed still  continue  to  exist,  but  not  surely  as  the  component  elements  of  an 
organized  structure.  In  that  respect  the  body  is  destroyed, — as  far  as  our 
present  observation  goes,  annihilated.  And  why  may  it  not  be  so  in  respect 
to  the  mind  ?  Allow  that  this  is  an  immaterial  substance,  and  as  such,  essen- 
tially different  from  the  body;  yet,  for  aught  we  can  tell,  it  might  be  capable 
of  being  resolved  into  some  condition  as  far  from  a  continuation  of  its  present 
state,  as  that  of  the  dead  body  is  in  respect  to  its  living  state.  The  phenom- 
ena of  swoons  and  sleep  clearly  show  that  immateriality  is  no  security  against 
the  suspension  of  thought  and  consciousness;  and  who  shall  be  able  to  as- 
sure us,  on  merely  natural  considerations,  that  death  is  not  a  destruction  of 
them? 

In  truth,  no  sure  footing  can  be  obtained  here  on  metaphysical  grounds. 
It  was  the  error  and  misfortune  of  the  ancient  philosophers — so  far  we  cer- 
tainly agree  with  Bishop  Warburton  ' — that  they  suffered  themselves  to  be 
determined  by  metaphysical  rather  than  by  moral  arguments  on  the  subject; 
for  this  naturally  took  off  their  minds  from  the  considerations  that  have  real 
weight,  and  involved  them  in  many  absurd  and  subtle  speculations,  which 
could  not  stand  with  the  soul's  personal  existence  hereafter.  When  he  ex- 
cepts  Socrates  from  the  number  and  accounts  for  his  firm  belief  in  a  future 
state  on  the  ground  of  his  avoiding  metaphysical  and  adhering  only  to  moral 
studies,  he  certainly  gives  us  a  very  different  view  of  the  reasonings  of  Socra- 
tes on  the  subject  from  that  presented  in  Plato.  And  we  are  persuaded  that 
neither  was  Socrates  so  singular  in  his  belief,  nor  the  others  so  universal  in 
their  disbelief,  of  a  future  state,  as  Warburton  would  have  us  to  believe.  But, 
undoubtedly,  there  would  have  been  far  more  of  belief  among  them,  if  their 
reasonings  had  taken  less  of  a  metaphysical  direction,  and  they  had  looked 
more  to  those  moral  considerations  connected  with  man's  nature  and  God's 
government,  on  which  the  stay  of  the  argument  should  alone  be  placed. 

Let  us  now  endeavor  to  indicate  briefly  the  different  steps  of  the  ratiocina- 
tion, which  it  is  possible  for  unassisted  nature,  when  rightly  directed,  to  take 
in  the  way  of  establishing  the  belief  of*the  soul's  existence  after  death  in  & 
state  of  reward  or  punishment. 

(1.)  First  of  all,  there  is  an  argument  furnished  by  the  analogies  of  nature, 
— an  argument  partly,  indeed,  of  a  simply  negative  character,  and  amounting 
to  nothing  more  than  that,  notwithstanding  the  visible  phenomena  of  death, 
the  soul  may  survive  and  pass  into  another  state  of  painful  or  blessed  con- 
sciousness. For,  however  nearly  connected  the  soul  is  with  the  body,  it  still  is 
capable  of  many  things  that  argue  the  possibility  of  its  maintaining  a  separate 
and  independent  existence.  Bodily  organs  may  be  lost — even  great  part  of 
the  body  be  reduced  to  an  inactive  lump  by  paralysis,  while  the  mind  exists 
in  full  vigor.  In  dreaming,  and  the  exercise  of  abstract  thought,  there  is 
sometimes  found  the  most  lively  exercise  of  mind,  when  its  connection  with 

'  Div.    /,../.  B.  1 1 1 .  g  4. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  A  FUTURE  STATE.  403 

the  body  is  the  slightest,  and,  as  far  as  we  can  discern,  mind  alone  is  at  wort. 
Why  may  it  not,  then,  live  and  act  when  it  is  altogether  released  from  the 
body — especially  when  we  see  the  period  of  its  release  is  often  the  moment  of 
its  highest  perfection  and  most  active  energy?  Those  preceding  analogies 
render  it  not  unreasonable  to  imagine  that  snch  at  least  may  be  the  case. 

Besides,  life  here  is  seen  to  move  in  cycles.  It  proceeds  from  one  stage  to 
another— each  end  proving  only  the  starting-point  of  a  new  beginning.  Man 
himself  exists  in  two  entirely  different  conditions — before  and  after  birth;  and 
throughout  his  whole  course  of  life  on  earth  he  is  perpetually  undergoing 
change.  Other  creatures  have  still  more  marked  changes  and  progressions  in 
their  career.  Thus  in  many  insects  there  is  first  the  egg,  then  the  worm,  then 
the  chrysalis,  then  the  fully  developed  insect.  And  there  are  cases  (of  Aphides) 
in  which  as  many  as  six  or  eight  generations  of  successive  change  and  devel- 
opment pass  away,  before  a  return  is  made  to  the  original  type.  Such  things 
appearing  in  the  present  operations  of  nature,  afford,  indeed,  no  positive  proof 
that  life  in  man  is  destined  to  survive  the  body,  and  enter  on  a  sphere  entirely 
different  from  the  present;  but  they  are  well  fitted  to  suggest  the  thought — 
and  they  meet  the  objection,  which  might  not  unnaturally  arise,  when  the 
thought  was  suggested,  from  the  great  diversity  necessarily  existing  between 
the  present  and  that  supposed  future  life.  For  they  show  that  it  is  part  of 
the  divine  plan  to  continue  life  through  yery  different  circumstances  and  con- 
ditions. 

It  is  manifest,  however,  that  such  analogies  in  nature  can  not  be  pressed 
farther  than  this, — they  simply  render  possible  or  conceivable  the  soul's  des- 
tination to  another  life,  and  answer  objections  apt  to  arise  against  it;  but  they 
contain  no  positive  proof  of  the  fact.  Indeed,  proceeding  as  they  do  upon 
the  constitution  of  man's  physical  nature,  and  what  is  common  to  him  with 
the  inferior  creation,  they  start  the  objection  on  the  other  side — that  if  on 
such  grounds  immortality  might  be  predicated  of  man,  it  might  also  be  predi- 
cated of  all  animals  alike.  But  there  is  another  class  of  analogies,  to  which 
this  objection  does  not  apply,  which  bring  out  the  essential  difference  between 
man  and  the  inferior  animals;  and  are  not  simply  negative  in  their  character, 
but  contain  something  of  presumptive  evidence  in  favor  of  a  future  state, 
closely  connected  with  the  present.  The  analogies  in  question  are  those  pre- 
sented by  the  adaptations  so  largely  pervading  the  divine  administration  on 
earth,  by  means  of  which  every  being  and  every  part  of  being  is  wisely  fitted 
to  its  place  and  condition.  We  see  this  adaptation  in  the  construction  of  the 
organs  of  the  human  body, — the  eye,  the  ear,  the  taste,  the  limbs, — all  so 
nicely  adjusted  to  the  positions  they  occupy,  both  in  respect  to  the  human 
frame  itself,  and  to  the  purposes  they  have  to  serve  in  connection  with  the 
material  objects  around  them.  We  see  it  in  the  masticating  and  digestive 
apparatus  with  which  the  various  kinds  of  animals  are  furnished, — one  after 
one  fashion,  another  after  another,  but  each  most  appropriately  suited  to  the 
nature  and  habits  of  the  specific  animal,  and  the  kind  of  aliment  required  for 
its  support.  We  see  it  even  in  the  general  condition  of  the  inferior  creation, 
which  is  so  ordered  in  the  great  majority  of  instances,  that  each  living  creat- 
ure gets  the  measure  of  good  of  which  it  is  capable,  and  with  which  it  is  sat- 
isfied. And  then  there  are  prospective  contrivances  in  connection  with  all 
animal  natures, — contrivances  formed  at  one  stage  of  their  existence,  and  pre- 
paring them  for  entering  upon  and  enjoying  another  still  before  them, — such 
as  the  eyes  that  are  already  fashioned  in  the  foetus,  and  the  second  row  of 
teeth  that  lie  for  a  time  buried  in  the  mouth  of  the  child,  and  spring  up  only 
when  they  are  required. 

Now,  when  we  turn  to  man  with  his  large  capacities  and  lofty  aspirations, 
— growing  and  rising  as  he  proceeds  through  life,  but  still  capable  of  indefi- 
nite expansion,  and  conscious  of  desires  that  can  find  no  satisfaction  here, — 
does  it  not  impress  itself  on  our  minds,  that  there  would  be  something  anom- 
alous— at  variance  with  the  analogies  everywhere  appearing  around  us — il 
man,  so  formed  and  constituted,  should  terminate  his  existence  on  earth? 
He  would,  in  that  case,  be  the  only  creature  that  might  seem  out  of  place  in 
the  world,  and  that  always  the  more,  the  higher  he  rose  in  the  scale  of  intel- 


104  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCULPTURE. 

licence  and  purity:  in  him  alone  there  would  be  powers  implanted,  which 
seemed  to  fail  of  their  proper  end  and  object.  "  A  brute  arrives  at  a  point  of 
perfection  that  he  can  never  pass:  in  a  few  years  he  has  all  the  endowments 
he  is  capable  of;  and  were  he  to  live  ten  thousand  more,  would  be  the  same 
thing  he  is  at  present.  Were  a  human  soul  thus  at  a  stand  in  her  accomplish- 
ments, were  her  faculties  to  be  full  blown,  and  incapable  of  further  enlarge- 
ments, I  could  imagine  it  might  fall  away  insensibly,  and  drop  at  once  into  a 
state  of  annihilation.  But  can  we  believe  a  thinking  being,  that  is  in  a  per- 
petual progress  of  improvements,  and  travelling  on  from  perfection  to  perfec- 
tion, after  having  just  looked  abroad  into  the  works  of  its  Creator,  and  made 
a  few  discoveries  of  His  infinite  goodness,  wisdom,  and  power,  must  perish 
at  her  first  setting  out,  and  in  the  very  beginning  of  her  inquiries  ?  Would 
an  infinitely  wise  Being  make  such  glorious  creatures  for  so  mean  a  purpose  ? 
Can  He  delight  in  such  abortive  intelligences,  such  short-lived  reasonable 
beings  ?  How  can  we  find  that  wisdom,  which  shines  through  all  His  works 
in  the  formation  of  man,  without  looking  on  this  world  as  only  a  nursery  for 
the  next,  and  believing  that  the  several  generations  of  rational  creatures, 
which  rise  up  and  disappear  in  such  quick  succession,  are  only  to  receive  the 
rudiments  of  their  existence  here,  and  afterwards  to  be  transplanted  into  a 
more  friendly  climate,  where  they  may  flourish  to  all  eternity?  "  ' 

This  argument  might  be  presented  as  one  merely  arising  out  of  the  gen- 
eral law  of  adaptation,  and  is  so  presented  by  Dr.  Chalmers  in  his  Institutes. 
But  it  is  the  analogies  connected  with  that  law  which  give  it  all  its  power  to 
awaken  any  presumption  in  favor  of  a  future  state  of  being  for  man,  as  sep- 
arate and  distinct  from  the  inferior  creation;  for  the  presumption  arises  on 
the  contemplation  of  the  apparent  discrepancy  between  man's  present  condi- 
tion and  his  present  capacities,  viewed  in  the  light  of  analogous  arrange- 
ments in  providence.  It  properly  belongs,  therefore,  to  the  argument  from 
analogy,  and  shows  how  that  argument  is  capable  also  of  assuming  a  positive 
form.  It  bears,  too,  quite  appositely  on  the  real  state  of  the  question, — 
which  is  not,  as  Bishop  Butler  and  most  others  in  his  day  seemed  to  think, 
whether  the  soul  is  naturally  and  essentially  immortal;  but  whether  we  are 
warranted  to  conclude  it  to  be  the  will  and  design  of  God,  as  indicated  in  our 
own  natures  and  His  government  of  the  world,  that  it  should  have  a  prolonged 
existence  in  a  future  state,  different  from,  yet  closely  connected  with,  the 
present. 

(2.)  A  second  and  still  stronger  ground  for  the  general  belief  in  such  a 
state  is  furnished  by  the  actings  of  conscience.  For  it  belongs  to  this  faculty 
to  pronounce  authoritatively  on  what  men  should  and  should  not  do,  and  to 
record  in  the  secret  chambers  of  the  breast  sentences  of  approval  or  condem- 
nation, according  as  the  things  done  are  perceived  to  have  been  right  or  wrong. 
But  there  is  always  a  felt  incompleteness  about  these  judgments  of  the  moral 
faculty,  viewed  simply  by  themselves;  and  they  rather  indicate  that  the  things 
so  judged  are  fit  subjects  of  reward  and  punishment,  than  that  they  have 
thereby  received  what  is  properly  due.  In  short,  the  authority  of  conscience, 
by  its  very  nature,  stands  related  to  a  higher  authority,  whose  will  it  recog- 
nizes, whose  verdict  it  anticipates.  And,  as  Bishop  Butler  justly  remarks 
concerning  it  in  his  sermons,  "if  not  forcibly  stopt,  it  naturally  and  always 
of  course  goes  on  to  anticipate  a  higher  and  more  effectual  sentence  which 
shall  hereafter  second  and  affirm  its  own." 

It  is  from  the  powerful  sway  that  conscience  has  in  awakening  such  antici- 
pations, and  its  tendency  to  connect  its  own  awards  with  those  of  a  righteous 
lawgiver,  that  we  are  to  account  for  the  predominantly  fearful  and  gloomy 

1  Addison,  in  Spectator,  Brit.  Essayists,  vi.  No.  111.  The  essay  is  a  fine  specimen  of  that 
delicate  sensibility  and  admirably-balanced  judgment  •which  enabled  Addison  often  to  seize 
on  thoughts  that  had  escaped  profound  thinkers.  He  introduces  the  argument  merely  as  a 
"hint  that  he  had  not  seen  opened  and  improved  by  others  who  had  written  on  the  subject," 
and  as  something  subsidiary  to  the  reasons  derived  from  the  essence  and  immateriality  of 
toe  soul,  which  were  then  chiefly  pressed.  Bishop  Butler  contents  himself  with  those  cur- 
rent reasons,  and  has  in  consequence  left  his  chapter  on  a  future  life  the  most  imperfect  and 
unnatisl'iictory  of  his  whole  book. 


405 

character  of  men's  native  thoughts  respecting  a  future  state.  There  is  much 
in  their  natural  condition  to  dispose  them,  when  looking  forward  to  another 
region  of  existence,  to  clothe  the  prospect  in  the  most  agreeable  and  fasci- 
nating colors,  that  they  might  find  in  it  an  effectual  counterbalance  to  the 
manifold  troubles  of  life,  and  a  support  amid  the  approaching  agonies  of 
death.  But  the  reverse  is  so  much  the  case,  that  it  is  the  apprehension,  rather 
than  the  expectation,  of  a  future  state  which  the  belief  of  immortality  most 
commonly  awakens.  And  the  vividness  with  which  the  mind  of  heathen  an- 
tiquity pictured  to  itself  the  punishments  of  Tartarus,  appear  strangely  con- 
trasted with  the  dim  and  ghost-like  pleasures  of  Elysium.  A  ready  explana- 
tion of  this  peculiarity  presents  itself  in  the  common  operations  of  conscience, 
in  which  the  notes  of  condemnation,  if  not  more  frequent,  are  at  least  greatly 
more  distinct  and  impressive,  than  those  of  satisfaction;  and  hence,  as  in 
glancing  upwards,  its  sense  of  guilt  naturally  awoke  the  idea  of  an  offended 
deity,  requiring  to  be  appeased  by  the  blood  of  sacrifice,  so  in  pointing  for- 
ward, its  sentences  of  reproof  not  less  naturally  cast  ominous  shadows  before 
them,  and  threw  a  sombre  and  forbidding  aspect  over  the  coming  eternity. 

The  convictions  thus  produced  in  men's  minds  respecting  a  future  world 
by  the  natural  workings  of  conscience,  it  is  plain,  involve  the  recognition  of 
a  moral  government  of  the  world,  and  one  that  is  accompanied  with  sanctions 
which  are  destined  to  take  effect  in  a  state  of  being  after  the  present.  It  is, 
if  we  may  so  speak,  on  the  background  of  such  a  government  with  such  sanc- 
tions, that  conscience  raises  in  the  bosom  its  forebodings  of  a  judgment  to 
come.  — Nor,  indeed,  on  any  other  ground  could  it  beget  either  fear  or  hope 
for  the  future. 

(3.)  But  closely  connected  with  this,  and  strongly  corroborative  of  the 
argument  it  affords  for  a  coming  existence  after  the  present,  is  the  evidence 
that  appears  of  a  moral  government  in  the  actual  course  of  things, — >a  govern- 
ment accompanied  by  present  sanctions.  And  this  we  announce  as  a  third, 
and,  upon  the  whole,  the  most  tangible  and  convincing  reason  for  the  antici- 
pation of  a  future  state  of  retribution.  But  here  it  will  be  necessary  to  go 
into  some  detail,  as  it  is  in  connection  with  this  part  of  the  argument  that 
divines  in  this  country  have  most  commonly  erred,  and,  by  a  strange  inver- 
sion, have  sought  for  proof  of  a  future  state  of  retribution  rather  in  the  ine- 
qualities of  the  divine  government,  or  its  apparent  want  of  moral  rectitude  and 
present  sanctions,  than  in  what  it  possesses  of  these.  Thus  it  is  mentioned 
by  Jeremy  Taylor,  in  his  sermon  on  the  death  of  Sir  George  Dalston,  as  one 
of  the  things  "which  God  has  competently  taught  to  all  mankind,  that  the 
soul  of  man  does  not  die ;  that  though  things  may  be  ill  here,  yet  to  the  good, 
who  usually  feel  most  of  the  evils  of  this  life,  they  should  end  in  honor  and 
advantages.  When  virtue,"  he  adds,  "made  man  poor,  and  free  speaking  of 
brave  truths  made  the  wise  to  lose  their  liberty;  when  an  excellent  life  has- 
tened an  opprobrious  death,  and  the  obeying  reason  and  our  conscience  lost 
us  our  lives,  or  at  least  all  the  means  and  conditions  of  enjoying  them, — it 
was  but  time  to  look  about  for  another  state  of  things,  where  justice  should 
rule,  and  virtue  find  her  own  portion."  The  want  of  justice  here,  and  virtue's 
bereavement  of  her  proper  reward,  is  thus  represented  as  the  main  reason  and 
impelling  motive  for  anticipating  a  better  state  of  things  hereafter.  And  a 
long  array  of  similar  representations  might  be  produced  from  the  works  of 

But  we  would  rather  point  to  the  manifestation  of  this  error— the  error  of 
overlooking  the  connection  between  a  present  and  a  future  recompense — as 
exhibited  in  a  more  doctrinal  form,  and  with  a  more  direct  injustice  to  the 
character  of  Scripture,  by  those  who  have  treated  of  the  religious  tenets  and 
prospects  of  the  Jews.  Not  unfrequently  do  we  find  the  one  presented  as 
the  antithesis  of  the  other — as  if  the  expectation  of  a  future  recompense 
could  only  begin  to  take  effect  when  the  other  began  to  give  way.  This 
is  done  in  the  coarsest  manner  by  Spencer,  in  his  work,  1)6  Leg.  Hebrteorum 
(L.  L  c.  vi.),  where  it  is  alleged,  the  ancient  Israelites  were  so  gross  and 
sensual,  so  addicted  to  the  flesh  and  the  world,  as  to  be  incapable  of  being 
moved  1  y  any  thing  but  present  rewards  and  punishment*,  and  which  is  but 


40G  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUKE. 

another  modification  of  the  same  view — since  idol-worship  owed  its  influ- 
ence chiefly  to  the  expectations  of  present  good  or  ill,  which  its  imaginary 
deities  were  supposed  to  have  at  their  command,  so  the  tendency  to  idolatry 
Among  the  Israelites  required  to  be  met  by  temporal  threatenings  and  prom- 
ises. As  if  God  were  willing  by  any  sort  of  means  to  attach  men  to  His  ser- 
vice, and  were  content  to  fight  idolatry  with  its  own  weapons,  provided  only 
He  could  induce  His  people  to  render  Him  a  formal  and  mercenary  homage  ! 
The  view  of  Warburton,  as  usual,  differs  only  in  a  slight  degree  from  Spen- 
cer's. It  proceeds  on  the  idea,  that  down  to  the  later  periods  of  the  Jewish 
commonwealth,  every  thing  was  administered  by  what  he  calls  an  extraordi- 
nary providence  of  present  rewards  and  punishments,  which  supplied  the 
place  of  the  yet  undiscovered  and  altogether  unknown  future  world;  and  that 
in  proportion  as  the  extraordinary  providence  broke  down,  the  belief  of  a 
future  state  of  reward  and  punishment  rose  in  its  stead.  Dean  Graves,  in  his 
work  on  the  Pentateuch,  follows  much  in  the  same  track,  although  he  would 
not  so  absolutely  exclude  the  belief  of  a  future  world  from  the  remoter  gen- 
erations of  God's  people.  Among  the  secondary  reasons  which  he  assigns  for 
the  employment  of  merely  temporal  sanctions  to  the  law,  he  mentions  "the 
intellectual  and  moral  character  of  the  Jewish  nation,  which  was  totally  inca- 
pable of  that  pure  and  rational  faith  in  the  sanctions  of  a  future  state,  without 
which  the  sanctions  can  not  effectually  promote  the  interests  of  piety  and 
virtue.  Their  desires  and  ideas  being  confined  to  the  enjoyments  of  a  pres- 
ent world,  they  would  pay  little  attention  to  the  promises  of  a  future  retribu- 
tion, which  they  could  never  be  sure  of  being  fulfilled." — (Works,  ii.  p.  222.) 
No  doubt,  if  their  desires  and  ideas  were,  and  must  have  been,  confined  to  a 
present  world; — but  why  such  a  necessity?  Would  it  not  have  been  the  most 
likely  way  to  give  their  desires  and  ideas  a  loftier  direction,  to  lay  open  to 
their  view  something  of  the  good  and  evil  to  be  inherited  in  the  world  to 
come  ?  And  if  it  had  consisted  with  the  divine  plan  to  impart  this,  is  it  to  be 
imagined  that  the  Israelites,  who  were  so  immeasurably  superior  to  all  the 
nations  of  antiquity  in  the  knowledge  of  divine  truth,  should  on  this  point 
alone  have  been  incapable  of  entertaining  ideas  which  the  very  rudest  of  these 
were  found  in  some  measure  to  possess  ? 

But  not  to  spend  further  time  in  the  disproof  of  a  notion  so  manifestly 
weak  and  untenable,  we  must  refer  more  particularly  to  what  Dean  Graves,  in 
common  with  many  British  divines,  regards  as  the  great  reason  for  the  silence 
observed  by  Moses  in  respect  to  a  future  state.  "I  contend,"  he  says  ( Works, 
ii.  p.  208),  "  that  the  reality  of  an  extraordinary  providence  (i.  e.,  an  adminis- 
tration of  present  rewards  and  punishments)  being  established  by  unques- 
tioned authority,  and  by  the  general  nature  of  the  Mosaic  code,  we  can  thence 
satisfactorily  account  for  the  omission  of  a  future  sanction,  and  that  this  is  the 
only  way  in  which  it  can  be  accounted  for."  That  is,  the  present  administra- 
tion of  rewards  and  punishments  is  the  only  way  of  accounting  for  the  omis- 
sion of  future  rewards  and  punishments !  This  might  have  been  said  with 
some  degree  of  truth,  if  it  had  been  meant,  that  through  the  present  the  future 
might  be  descried;  but  not  in  the  sense  understood  by  Dr.  Graves,  as  if  the 
one  had  been  to  some  extent  incompatible  with  the  other.  The  truth  and 
reality  of  the  temporal  sanction  should  rather  have  been  viewed  as  the  neces- 
sary foundation  and  undoubted  evidence  of  a  future  retribution.  On  this 
point  Hengstenberg  forcibly  remarks,  "Where  this  foundation — that,  namely, 
of  a  moral  government  on  earth,  a  temporal  recompense — is  not  laid,  there 
the  building  of  a  faith  in  immortality  is  raised  on  sand,  and  must  fall  before 
the  first  blast.  He  who  does  not  recognize  the  temporal  recompense,  must 
necessarily  find  in  his  heart  a  response  to  the  scoff  of  Vanini  at  the  revelation, 
"which  indeed  promises  retributions  for  good  and  bad  actions,  but  only  in 
the  life  to  come,  lest  the  fraud  should  be  discovered."  There  is  to  be  found 
in  Earth  on  Glaudian,  p.  1078  seq.,  a  rich  collection  from  heathen  authors,  in 
Vehich  despair  as  to  a  future  recompense  is  raised  on  the  ground  of  unbelief 
as  to  a  present  one.  And  does  not  the  history  of  our  own  age  render  it  clear 
and  palpable  how  closely  the  two  must  hang  together?  The  doubt  was  first 
directed  against  the  temporal  recompense ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  belief  oi 


THE  DOCTBDtE  OF  A  FUTURE  STATE.  40T 

immortality  was  going  to  rise,  in  consequence  of  this  very  misapprehension, 
to  a  higher  significance  and  greater  stability.  Supranaturalistic  theologian* 
themselves,  such  as  Knapp  and  Steudel,  derived  one  of  their  leading  proofs  of 
a  future  retribution  from  deficiences  of  the  present  one.  But  the  real  coaee- 
quence  was  not  long  in  discovering  itself.  The  doctrine  of  reward,  driven 
from  the  lower  region,  could  not  long  maintain  its  ground  in  the  higher.  It 
became  manifest  that  the  hope  of  immortality  had  fed  itself  with  its  own  heart's 
blood.  "If  ye  enjoy  not  such  a  recompense  on  earth,"  says  Richter  justly, 
according  to  the  conceptions  of  the  age,  "God  is  by  no  means  truly  righteous, 
and  you  find  yourselves  in  opposition  to  your  own  doctrine."  Where  the 
sentiment  that  the  world's  history  is  a  world's  judgment,  is  first  of  all  heartily 
received  in  the  true,  the  scriptural  sense,  there  the  advance  becomes  certain 
and  inevitable  to  faith  in  the  (final)  judgment  of  the  world." — (Pent.  ii.  p.  573. ) 

Earlier  and  more  appalling  illustrations  than  those  referred  to  in  this  ex- 
tract, might  have  been  produced  of  the  certainty  with  which  disbelief  in  a 
present  tends  to  beget  disbelief  also  in  a  future  recompense.  In  those  great 
and  sweeping  calamities  in  which  all  distinctions  seem  to  be  lost  between  the 
good  and  the  bad,  all  alike  standing  in  jeopardy  of  life,  or  ruthlessly  mowed 
down  by  th«  destroyer,  it  is  seldom  long  till  a  general  relaxation  of  principle, 
and  even  total  regardlessness  of  future  consequences,  comes  to  prevail.  It 
seems  at  such  times  as  if  the  very  foundations  of  religion  and  virtue  were  de- 
stroyed, and  nothing  remained  but  a  selfish  and  convulsive  straggle  for  the 
interests  of  the  moment:  "Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  This 
is  the  right  reading  of  the  account  given  by  Thucydides  of  the  plague  at 
Athens,  formerly  adverted  to,  in  which  the  historian  tells  us,  "Men  were  re- 
strained neither  by  fear  of  the  gods,  nor  by  human  law;  deeming  it  all  one 
whether  they  paid  religious  worship  or  not,  since  they  saw  that  all  perished 
alike,  and  not  expecting  they  should  live  till  judgment  should  be  passed  on 
their  offences  here."  Similar  visitations  in  later  times  have  always  been  ob- 
served to  produce  similar  effects,  excepting  where  religious  principle  has  been 
so  deeply  rooted  and  so  generally  diffused,  as  to  triumph  over  present  appear- 
ances. During  the  plague  of  Milan  in  1630,  deeds  of  savage  cruelty  and  whole- 
sale plunder  were  committed  that  would  never  have  been  thought  of  in  ordi- 
nary times.  Even  in  London  during  the  great  plague  in  1665,  while  there 
were  not  wanting  proofs  of  sincere  devotion  and  living  principle,  there  was 
also  a  terrific  display  of  the  worst  passions  of  human  nature.  And  of  times 
of  pestilence  generally,  Niebuhr  says  in  one  of  his  letters,  "They  are  always 
those  in  which  the  animal  and  the  devilish  in  human  nature  assume  promi- 
nence." The  lurid  light  reflected  from  such  apparent  temporary  suspensions 
of  God's  moral  government,  abundantly  shows  what  results  might  be  antici- 
pated, if  its  ordinary  sanctions  did  not  exist,  and  the  present  recompenses  of 
good  and  evil  were  withdrawn.  It  would  no  longer  be  the  utterance  merely 
of  the  fool,  but  the  general  sentiment  of  mankind,  that  there  is  no  God— none 
judging  in  the  earth  now,  and  therefore  none  to  judge  in  eternity  hereafter. 
For,  as  Hengstenberg  remarks  again,  "What  God  does  not  do  here,  neither 
will  He  do  hereafter.  If  He  is  indeed  the  living  and  the  righteous  God,  He 
can  not  merely  send  forth  letters  of  credit  for  blessing,  nor  terrify  with  simple 
threatenings  of  future  eviL"  ' 

The  ground  on  which  we  here  rest  the  natural  expectation  of  a  future  state 

'  How  strongly  the  more  thinking  portion  of  heathen  antiquity  clung  to  the  doctrine  of  a 
retributive  providence  as  the  abiding  ground  of  hope  amid  appearances  fitted  to  shake  it, 
m?y  be  seen  alone  from  the  train  of  argument  pursued  by  Juvenal  In  his  13th  Book,  where, 
treating  of  the  prosperities  of  bad  men,  he  finds  consolation  in  the  thought  that  they  Buffer 
from  the  inflictions  of  an  evil  conscience,  itself  the  heaviest  of  punishments;  that  hence, 
things  naturally  pleasant  and  agreeable,  such  as  delicious  food  and  wines,  fail  to  give  them 
satisfaction;  that  their  sleep  is  disturbed;  that  they  are  frightened  with  thunder  and  dis- 
ease, seeing  in  such  things  the  signs  of  an  offended  deity ;  and  that  they  go  on  to  wona 
•tages  of  iniquity,  till  they  are  overwhelmed  with  punishment;  and  conclude*,  that  if  the** 
things  are  considered, 

Poena  guadebls  amara 

Nominls  Invisl  tandemque  fatebere  Ifetus, 

Nee  rurdum,  nee  Tiresiam  quemquam  esse  Deonun. 


408  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOBIPTUBE. 

of  reward  and  punishment,  is  precisely  that  which  has  been  so  solidly  laid  by 
Bishop  Butler  in  the  second  and  third  chapters  of  his  Analogy;  and  it  may 
well  excite  our  wonder,  that  especially  English  divines,  who  muut  be  well 
acquainted  with  the  train  of  thought  there  pursued,  should  suppose  an  extra- 
ordinary providence,  or  an  exact  distribution  of  reward  and  punishment  on 
earth,  to  militate  against  either  the  revelation  or  the  belief  of  a  future  state. 
It  is  simply  the  want,  the  apparent  or  real  want,  of  exactness  in  these  tem- 
poral distributions  in  the  usual  course  of  providence,  which  mars  the  com- 
Eleteness  of  Butler's  argument.  Yet,  as  things  actually  stand,  he  does  not 
esitate  to  draw  from  the  present  aspect  and  constitution  of  providence  the 
following  conclusions: — first,  That  the  Author  of  nature  is  not  indifferent  to 
virtue  and  vice;  secondly,  That  if  God  should  reward  virtue  and  punish  vice, 
as  such,  so  that  every  one  may  upon  the  whole  have  his  deserts,  this  distribu- 
tive justice  would  not  be  a  thing  different  in  kind,  but  only  in  degree,  from 
what  we  experience  in  His  present  government.  It  would  be  that  in  effect, 
toward  which  we  now  see  a  tendency.  It  would  be  no  more  than  the  completion 
of  that  moral  government,  the  principles  and  beginning  of  which  have  been 
shown,  beyond  all  dispute,  discernible  in  the  present  constitution  and  course 
of  nature.  And  from  hence  it  follows,  thirdly,  That  as,  under  the  natural  gov- 
ernment of  God,  our  experience  of  those  kinds  and  degrees  of  happiness  and 
misery  which  we  do  experience  at  present,  gives  just  ground  to  hope  for  and 
to  fear  higher  degrees  and  other  kinds  of  both  in  a  future  state,  supposing  a 
future  state  admitted;  so,  under  'His  moral  government,  our  experience  that 
virtue  and  vice  are  actually  rewarded  and  punished  at  present,  in  a  certain 
degree,  gives  just  ground  to  hope  and  to  fear  that  they  may  be  rewarded  and 
punished  in  a  higher  degree  hereafter.  And  there  is  ground  to  think  that 
they  actually  will  be  so,  from  the  good  and  bad  tendencies  of  virtue  and  vice, 
which  are  essential,  and  founded  in  the  nature  of  things;  whereas  the  hin- 
drances to  their  becoming  effect  are,  in  numberless  cases,  not  necessary,  but 
artificial  only.  And  it  is  much  more  likely  that  these  tendencies,  as  well  as 
the  actual  rewards  and  punishments  of  virtue  and  vice,  which  arise  directly 
out  of  the  nature  of  things,  will  remain  hereafter,  than  that  the  accidental 
hindrances  of  them  will. 

The  solid  foundation  which  these  considerations  lay  for  the  expectation  of 
a  future  state  of  reward  and  punishment,  and  which,  growing  out  of  the  ob- 
servation of  what  is  constantly  taking  place  here,  must  be  felt  in  thousands  of 
bosoms  that  never  thought  of  turning  it  into  the  form  of  an  argument,  is 
entirely  overlooked  by  Archbishop  Whately  in  the  essay  formerly  referred  to. 
He  does  not,  indeed,  like  Warburton  and  Graves,  place  the  temporal  rewards 
and  punishments  in  direct  antagonism  to  the  disclosure  of  a  future  state;  but 
neither  does  he  make  any  account  of  the  one  as  constituting  a  proper  ground 
for  the  expectation  of  the  other,  and  forming  a  kind  of  natural  stepping-stone 
to  it.  His  line  of  argument  rather  implies  that  it  would  have  the  reverse  ten- 
dency, and  that  the  Jews  were  only  prepared  to  receive  the  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality when  their  present  temporal  blessings  ceased  (§  10).  He  deems  it 
absolutely  incredible  that  the  Israelites,  as  a  people,  should  have  looked  for 
an  after  state  of  being,  seeing  that  their  attention  was  so  very  rarely,  if  at  all, 
directed  to  such  a  state,  and  seeing  also  that  they  so  seldom  believed  what 
was  of  much  easier  credence — the  temporal  promises  and  threatenings  held 
out  to  them.  The  presumption  against  it  he  thinks  greatly  strengthened  by 
the  difficulty  still  experienced  in  getting  people  to  realize  the  prospect  of  a 
future  world,  notwithstanding  the  comparative  clearness  and  frequency  with 
which  it  is  pressed  on  their  notice  in  the  GospeL  In  this,  however,  two  things 
are  evidently  confounded  together — the  speculative  knowledge  or  notional  be- 
lief, and  the  practical  faith  of  a  future  state  of  happiness  and  misery.  For,  on 
the  same  ground  that  Dr.  Whately  denies  the  hope  of  immortality  to  those 
who  lived  under  the  Jewish  dispensation,  he  might  hold  it  to  be  very  doubt- 
fully or  darkly  propounded  to  believers  now.  Besides,  he  is  obliged,  after 
all,  to  admit,  that  somehow  the  doctrine  and  belief  of  a  future  state  did  be- 
come prevalent  among  the  Jews  long  before  the  revelations  of  the  Gospel, — 
an  admission  which  i»  totally  subversive  of  his  main  positions;  for,  beyond 


THE  DOCTEINE  OF  A  FUTURE  STATE.  tf)0 

ill  dispute,  this  prevalent  belief  arose  without  the  doctrine  being  frequently 
and  directly  inculcated  in  any  book  of  authoritative  Scripture.  It  is  latal, 
also,  to  the  argument  from  2  Tim.  i.  10,  "Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  abolished 
death,  and  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light  through  the  Gospel."  For 
if  the  knowledge  of  a  future  state  existed  at  all  before  Christ,  this  could  not 
liave  been  brought  to  light  by  Him,  as  a  thing  till  then  wrapt  in  utter  dark- 
ness  and  obscurity.  Nor  does  the  statement  of  the  apostle  imply  so  much. 
It  merely  declares  that  by  means  of  Christ's  Gospel  a  clear  light  has  been  shed 
on  the  concerns  of  a  future  life:  they  have  been  brought  distinctly  into  view, 
and  set  in  the  foreground  of  His  spiritual  kingdom.  And  we  have  no  more 
reason  to  maintain,  from  such  a  declaration,  that  all  was  absolute  darkness 
before,  than  to  argue  from  Christ  being  called  "the  true  Light,  which  lighteth 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world"  (John  i.  9),  that  a  total  ignorance 
reigned  before  His  coming  in  regard  to  the  things  of  God's  kingdom. 

In  truth,  it  is  no  more  the  specific  object  of  the  Christian,  than  it  was  of 
the  earlier  dispensations,  to  disclose  and  formally  establish  the  doctrine  of  a 
future  state.  They  both  alike  take  it  for  granted,  and  have  it  for  their  imme- 
diate aim  to  prepare  men  for  entering  on  its  realities.  Only,  in  the  dispensa- 
tion of  the  Gospel,  where  first  the  adequate  provision  for  eternity  has  been 
made,  and  the  way  is  laid  open  into  its  abiding  mansions,  does  a  light  shine 
upon  its  momentous  interests,  which,  from  the  nature  of  things,  could  not  be 
imparted  previously,  without  confounding  shadow  and  substance  together, 
and  merging  the  preparatory  in  the  final.  But  still  the  existence  of  a  future 
state  of  reward  and  punishment  was  implied  from  the  very  first  in  the  history 
of  the  divine  dispensations,  and  is  not  doubtfully  indicated  in  many  of  the 
earlier  notices  of  Scripture,  as  among  the  settled  beliefs  of  God's  people.  It 
was  implied  even  in  the  first  institution  of  a  religion  of  mercy  and  hope  for 
fallen  man;  since,  connecting  with  God's  worship  the  prospect  of  a  recovery 
from  the  ruin  of  sin,  it  would  have  only  mocked  the  worshippers  with  false 
expectations,  unless  an  immortal  state  of  blessedness  had  been  the  issue  it 
contemplated  for  such  as  faithfully  complied  with  the  appointed  services.  It 
was  implied  in  the  special  dealings  of  God  with  His  more  honored  servants, — 
such  as  Abel  and  Enoch  before  the  flood,  and  after  it  Abraham  and  the  patri- 
archs,— whose  history,  in  many  of  its  bearings,  is  an  inexplicable  riddle,  if 
viewed  apart  from  the  hope  of  better  things  to  come  in  their  future  destiny. 
It  is  implied  again  as  an  object  of  well-grounded  faith  and  expectation,  to 
such  persons  and  their  spiritual  seed,  in  the  relation  which  God  acknowledged 
Himself  to  hold  towards  them,  as  their  God  and  their  Father, — titles  that 
manifestly  bespoke  for  them  an  abiding  interest  in  His  eternal  power  and 
Godhead.— (Gen.  vi.  2;  Ex.  iii.  6,  iv.  22;  Matt.  xxii.  32;  Heb.  xi.  16.)  Could 
such  special  dealings  and  revelations  have  been  made  to  the  ancestors  of  the 
Jewish  race  without  awakening  a  response  in  the  bosoms  of  those  that  received 
them  ?  Could  they  have  failed  to  stimulate  and  call  forth  that  instinctive  be- 
lief in  a  future  state,  which  even  common  providences  were  sufficient  to  evoke 
in  all  other  nations  of  the  earth  ?  The  idea  is  utterly  incredible:  and  scanty 
as  the  notices  are  which  are  given  us  of  their  feelings  and  prospects  (for  a 
supernatural  restraint  was  laid  upon  the  sacred  penmen  in  this  respect),  they 
yet  tell  us  of  a  hope  in  death  which  was  enjoyed  by  the  good, — a  hope  which 
it  was  the  highest  wish  of  Balaam  in  his  better  moods  to  possess  as  his  own 
last  heritage— the  hope  of  being  gathered,  in  the  first  instance,  to  their  fathers 
in  the  peaceful  chambers  of  Sheol,  and  of  ultimately  attaining  to  a  better  res- 
urrection,—(Gen.  xxv.  8,  xlix.  33;  Num.  xxiii.  10;  Heb.  xi.  13,  35.) 

These  views  respecting  the  earlier  dispensations,  as  connected  with  the 
doctrine  and  belief  of  a  future  state,  are  strongly  confirmed  by  the  argument 
maintained  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  that  to  the  Hebrews.  The  pro- 
fessed object  of  these  epistles  is  to  prove  the  necessity  of  the  Christian  relig- 
ion, and  its  superiority  over  even  the  true,  though  imperfect,  forms  of  religion 
that  existed  before  it.  And  if  there  had  been  such  an  utter  lack  of  any  just 
ground  for  the  expectation  of  a  future  state  in  the  Old  Testament  dispensa- 
tions, as  is  supposed  by  those  we  are  now  contending  against,  the  chief  stress 
would  naturally  have  been  laid  upon  the  great  omission  in  this  respect  which 


410  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOEIPTUKE. 

had  been  supplied  by  the  Gospel.  But  is  it  so  in  reality  ?  So  far  from  it, 
that  the  reverse  is  frequently  stated,  and  uniformly  assumed.  Ancient  as 
well  as  present  believers  looked  and  hoped  for  a  better  existence  after  this. 
The  main  discussion  in  both  epistles  turns  on  man's  relation  to  the  law  oi 
God,  and  (to  use  the  words  of  Coleridge,  Aids  to  Reflection,  vol.  i.  p.  293)  "  to 
the  point,  of  which  this  law,  in  its  own  name,  offered  no  solution, — the  mys- 
tery which  it  left  behind  the  veil,  or  in  the  cloudy  tabernacle  of  types  and  fig- 
urative sacrifices.  It  was  not  whether  there  was  a  judgment  to  come,  and 
souls  to  suffer  the  dread  sentence;  but  rather,  what  are  the  means  of  escape? 
where  may  grace  be  found,  and  redemption  ?  Not,  therefore,  that  there  is  a 
life  to  come,  and  a  future  state;  but  what  each  individual  soul  may  hope  for 
itself  therein;  and  on  what  grounds:  and  that  this  state  has  been  rendered  an 
object  of  aspiration  and  fervent  desire,  and  a  source  of  thanksgiving  and  ex* 
ceeding  great  joy;  and  by  whom,  and  through  whom,  and  for  whom,  and  by 
what  means,  and  under  what  conditions, — these  are  the  peculiar  and  distin- 
guishing fundamentals  of  the  Christian  faith.  These  are  the  revealed  lights 
and  obtained  privileges  of  the  Christian  dispensation.  Not  alone  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  boon,  but  the  precious  inestimable  boon  itself,  is  the  grace  and 
truth  that  came  by  Jesus  Christ." 

To  return,  however,  to  our  main  theme:  We  hold  it  to  be  a  great  and  un- 
happy oversight  that  has  been  committed  by  many,  who,  in  ignoring  the  con- 
nection between  a  present  and  a  future  recompense,  have  thereby  left  out  of 
view  the  very  strongest  of  nature's  grounds  for  anticipating  an  hereafter  of 
weal  or  woe.  But  it  is  quite  possible  to  err  on  the  one  side  as  well  as  on  the 
other.  "There  is  no  error  so  crooked,  as  not  to  have  in  it  some  lines  of 
truth."  And  it  seems  to  us,  that  Hengstenberg,  in  the  treatise  already  quoted 
from,  has  to  some  extent  overlooked  the  lines  of  truth  which  are  in  the  error 
he  controverts.  It  is  quite  true,  as  he  has  correctly  and  vigorously  stated, 
that  the  temporal  is  the  necessary  basis  of  the  future  recompense;  and  that  it 
is  from  what  God  does  here  men  are  to  argue,  and  in  fact  do  argue  and  infer, 
regarding  what  He  will  do  hereafter.  It  is  also  true,  as  further  stated  by  him, 
that  a  clear  knowledge  of  the  breadth  and  purity  of  God's  law,  and  of  the 
various  spiritual  ends  God  aims  at  in  His  dealings  with  men  on  earth,  are 
sufficient  to  explain  many  seeming  irregularities  in  His  outward  providence; 
as  it  discovers  enough  of  imperfection  in  the  righteousness  of  the  good  to 
account  for  their  liability  to  sufferings,  and  enough  of  evil  in  the  prosperity 
of  the  bad  to  render  their  condition  destitute  of  real  blessing.  All  this  is 
admitted,  and  yet  one  can  not  but  feel  that  there  is  something  which  is  left 
unexplained  by  it,  or  not  thoroughly  met.  The  assertion  of  a  perfect  admin- 
istration of  right  holds  in  the  full  sense,  only  when  eternity  is  added  to  time; 
that  is,  when  the  point  now  under  consideration  is  virtually  taken  for  granted. 
Looking  simply  to  a  present  world,  it  is  impossible  to  maintain  that  the  ad- 
ministration is  perfect:  the  more  impossible,  the  clearer  and  more  spiritual 
our  views  are  of  the  law  of  righteousness.  For  how,  then,  could  the  doers  of 
righteousness  be  found  to  suffer,  as  is  sometimes  the  case,  for  their  good 
deeds  ?  or  how  could  prosperity  of  any  kind  be  accorded  to  the  enemies  of 
righteousness  ?  True,  their  prosperity  may  prove  in  the  long  run  their  pun- 
ishment, but  only  in  respect  to  its  bearing  on  the  issues  of  a  coming  eternity; 
and  even  then  only  as  abused  on  their  part,  not  as  given  on  the  part  of  God. 
In  themselves,  His  gifts  are  all  good ;  and  the  commonest  bounties  of  provi- 
dence, if  conferred  on  the  unworthy,  mark  a  relative  imperfection,  at  least  in 
the  administration  of  justice  on  earth.  Without  some  measure  even  of  real 
imperfection,  where  would  there  be  room  for  the  cry  of  an  oppressed  Church, 
"Lord,  how  long?"  Or  where  again  the  necessity  for  the  righteous  looking 
BO  much  away  from  the  present  world,  and  fixing  their  expectations  on  what 
is  to  come?  In  truth,  a  certain  degree  of  imperfection  here  is  as  much  to  be 
expected,  and,  in  a  sense  also,  as  necessary,  as  in  all  the  preparatory  dispen- 
sations of  God.  For  it  is  the  feeling  of  imperfection  within  definite  limits 
which  more  especially  prompts  the  soul  to  look  and  long  for  a  more  perfect 
future. 

To  bring  the  discussion  to  a  close:  It  is  indispensably  necessary,  in  order 


ON  SACRIFICIAL  WORSHIP.  411 

to  ground  the  conviction  and  belief  of  a  future  state  of  reward  and  punish- 
ment, that  there  should  be  in  the  present  course  of  the  divine  administration 
palpable  and  undoubted  evidences  of  a  moral  government  of  the  world.  And 
in  furnishing  these  in  such  manifold  variety,  and  with  such  singular  clearness, 
consisted  the  peculiar  service  rendered  by  the  Mosaic  dispensation  to  the 
doctrine  of  a  future  state.  But  enough  being  seen  in  the  providence  of  God 
to  establish  this  doctrine  in  the  convictions  of  men,  the  appearance,  along 
with  that,  of  anomalies  and  imperfections,  must  naturally  tend  to  confirm  its 
hold  on  serious  minds,  and  foster  the  expectation  of  its  future  realities;  as 
they  can  not  but  feel  convinced  that  a  righteousness  which  gives  such  in- 
dubitable marks  of  its  stringent  operation,  shall  sometime  remove  every 
defect,  and  perfect  its  work.  They  deem  it  certain,  that  under  the  govern- 
ment of  a  God  to  whom  such  righteousness  belongs,  the  apparent  must  at 
length  be  adjusted  to  the  real  state  of  things,  and  that  all  instances  of  pros- 
perous villany  and  injured  worth  must  be  brought  to  an  end.  "There  is 
much,  therefore,"  to  use  the  words  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  "  in  the  state  of  our  pres- 
ent world,  when  its  phenomena  are  fully  read  and  rightly  interpreted,  to  war- 
rant the  expectation,  that  a  time  for  the  final  separation  of  all  those  grievous 
unfitnesses  and  irregularities  is  yet  coming, — when  the  good  and  the  evil  shall 
be  separated  into  two  distinct  societies,  and  the  same  God  who,  in  virtue  of 
His  justice,  shall  appear  to  the  one  in  the  character  of  an  avenger,  shall,  in 
virtue  of  His  love,  stand  forth  to  the  other  as  the  kind  and  munificent  Father 
of  a  duteous  offspring,  shielded  by  His  paternal  care  from  all  that  can  offend 
or  annoy  in  mansions  of  unspotted  holiness."  '  Were  it  not,  he  justly  adds, 
for  the  element  of  justice  visible  in  God's  administration,  we  should  have  no 
stepping-stone  to  arrive  at  this  conclusion.  And  yet  the  partial  defects  and 
imperfections  apparent  in  its  present  exercise  have  their  share  in  contribut- 
ing to  the  result;  as  they  materially  tend,  when  once  the  conclusion  itself 
is  established  in  the  mind,  to  nourish  the  expectation  of  another  and  more 
perfect  state  to  come. 


APPENDIX    C. 
ON  SACRIFICIAL  WORSHIP.— P.  251. 

THE  great,  and  we  may  say,  fundamental  mistake  in  the  sounder  portion 
of  English  theologians,  who  have  written  upon  primitive  sacrifice,  has  been 
their  holding  the  necessity  of  a  divine  command  to  prove  the  existence  of  a 
divine  origin.  They  have  conceived  that  the  absence  of  such  a  command 
would  inevitably  imply  the  want  of  such  an  origin.  And  hence  the  whole 
strength  of  the  argument,  as  it  has  been  usually  conducted,  is  directed  to 
show,  that  though  no  command  is  actually  recorded,  yet  the  facts  of  tho 
case  prove  it  to  have  been  issued.  As  a  specimen  of  this  style  of  reasoning, 
we  take  the  following  from  Delany:— "Nothing  but  God's  command  could 
create  a  right  to  take  away  the  lives  of  His  creatures.  And  it  is  certain 
that  the  destruction  of  an  innocent  creature  is  not  in  itself  an  action  accept- 
able to  God;  and  therefore  nothing  but  duty  could  make  it  acceptable,  and 
nothing  but  the  command  of  God  could  make  it  dutiful."— (Revelation  ex- 
amined with  Candor,  vol.  i.  p.  136. )  And  so  generally.  Uncommanded  sac- 
rifice, it  has  been  presumed,  would  necessarily  have  been  unwarranted  and 
unacceptable;  and  therefore  the  right  to  kill  ftnimftlq  for  clothing,  but  still 
more  the  duty  of  sacrificing  their  lives  in  worship,  has  appeared  conclu- 

* Inttituiet,  voL  L  p.  1SL 


412  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRTPTURR 

sively  to  argue  the  prior  existence  of  a  divine  command  to  use  them  in  aota 
of  worship. 

The  opponents  of  this  view,  on  the  other  hand,  have  maintained,  and 
we  think  have  maintained  successfully,  that  if  such  a  command,  expressly 
and  positively  enjoining  the  sacrifice  of  animal  life  in  worship,  had  actually 
been  given,  it  is  unaccountable  that  it  should  not  have  been  recorded;  since, 
to  drop  it  from  the  record,  if  so  certainly  given,  and  so  essentially  necessary, 
as  is  alleged  on  the  other  side,  was  like  leaving  out  the  foundation  of  the 
whole  edifice  of  primitive  worship.  The  only  warrantable  conclusion  we 
can  be  entitled  to  draw  from  the  silence  of  Scripture  in  such  a  case,  is,  that 
no  command  of  the  kind  was  really  given.  So  with  some  reason  it  is 
alleged;  but  when  the  persons  who  argue  and  conclude  thus,  proceed,  as 
they  invariably  do,  to  the  further  conclusion,  that  since  there  was  no  com- 
mand, there  was  nothing  properly  divine  in  the  offerings  of  sacrificial  wor- 
ship, they  unduly  contract  the  boundaries  of  the  divine  in  human  things, 
rxnd  betray,  besides,  an  entire  misapprehension  of  the  nature  of  the  first 
dispensation  of  God  toward  fallen  man.  This,  as  we  have  said,  is  distin- 
guished by  the  absence  of  command  in  every  thing;  throughout  it  exhibits 
nothing  of  law  in  the  strict  and  proper  sense;  and  yet  it  would  surely  be  a 
piece  of  extravagance  to  maintain  that  there  were  not,  in  the  procedure  of 
God,  and  in  the  relation  man  was  appointed  to  hold  toward  Him,  the 
essential  grounds  and  materials  of  moral  obligation.  How  readily  these 
were  discovered,  in  the  divine  operations,  where  still  there  was  no  divine 
command,  may  be  inferred  from  what  is  written  of  the  formation  of  Eve: 
"And  Adam  said,  This  is  now  bone  of  my  bones,  and  flesh  of  my  flesh:  she 
shall  be  called  woman  (Isha),  because  she  was  taken  out  of  man  (Ish)."  He 
had  come  to  know  the  manner  of  her  formation;  the  divine  act  had  been  dis- 
closed to  him,  as  it  had,  doubtless,  been  in  all  others  in  which  he  was  per- 
sonally interested,  because  in  the  act  there  was  contained  a  revelation  of  God, 
involving  responsibilities  and  duties  for  His  creatures.  "Therefore,"  it  is 
added,  by  way  of  inference  from  the  act  of  God,  and  an  inference,  if  not 
drawn  on  the  spot  by  Adam,  yet  undoubtedly  expressing  the  mind  of  God, 
as  to  what  might  even  then  have  been  drawn,  and  what  actually  was  drawn, 
by  the  better  portion  of  his  immediate  descendants,  "Therefore  shall  a  man 
leave  his  father  and  his  mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife :  and  they  shall 
be  one  flesh."  The  act  of  God  alone,  without  any  accompanying  command, 
laid  the  foundation  for  all  coming  time  of  the  conjugal  relation,  and  not  only 
entitled,  but  bound  men  to  hold,  as  of  divine  appointment,  its  virtual  incorpo- 
rations of  persons,  and  corresponding  obligations  of  mutual  love  and  fidelity. 

The  principle  that  ought  to  be  laid  as  the  foundation  of  all  just  reasoning 
on  such  subjects,  is,  that  whatever  man  can  plainly  learn  from  the  revelations 
God  gives  of  Himself,  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  divine  mind  and  will,  that 
is  of  God,  and  it  is  man's  duty  to  believe  and  act  accordingly.  But  the  issu- 
ing of  authoritative  commands  is  not  the  only  way  God  has  of  revealing  His 
mind  and  will;  nor,  to  creatures  made  after  His  own  image,  and  even  though 
fallen,  yet  capable  within  certain  limits  of  understanding  and  imitating  His 
procedure,  is  it  even  the  first  and  most  natural  way  of  doing  so.  It  is  rather  the 
manifestations  which  God  gives  of  Himself  in  His  works  and  ways,  in  which 
they  might  be  expected  to  find  the  primary  grounds  of  their  faith  and  prac- 
tice; and  only  when  such  had  proved  to  be  inadequate,  might  they  require  to 
be  supplemented  by  explicit  commands  and  stringent  enactments.  Holding, 
therefore,  as  we  do,  that  the  command  to  sacrifice  was  not  necessary  to  estab- 
lish the  divine  authority  of  the  rite  of  sacrifice,  — holding,  moreover,  that  in 
the  divine  act  of  covering  man's  person  by  the  skins  of  slain  beasts,  as  the 
symbol  of  his  guilt  being  covered  before  God,  there  was  an  actual  revelation 
of  the  mind  of  God  in  regard  to  His  purposes  of  mercy  and  forgiveness  to  the 
sinful,  precisely  such  as  was  afterwards  embodied  in  animal  sacrifice, — we  can 
satisfactorily  account  for  the  absence  of  the  command,  and  at  the  same  time 
maintain  the  essentially  divine  origin  of  the  rite.  And  the  reasoning  of  Da- 
vison  and  others,  on  the  principle  of  no  command,  therefore  no  divine  au- 
thority falls  to  the  ground  of  itself  as  a  false  deduction. 


ON  SACREFICLLL  WOKSHIP.  413 

Of  course  the  soundness  of  our  own  view  respecting  the  essentially  divine 
origin  of  sacrifice  and  its  properly  expiatory  character,  depends  upon  the  cor- 
rectness  of  the  interpretation  we  have  put  upon  the  divine  act  referred  to. 
Davison,  in  common  with  British  divines  generally,  regards  it  in  a  merely 
natural  light  He  sees  in  it  simply  "an  instance  of  the  divine  wisdom  and 
philanthropy;  interposing,  by  the  dictation  and  provision  of  a  more  durable 
clothing,  to  veil  the  nakedness  and  cherish  the  modesty  of  our  fallen  nature 
by  sin  made  sensible  to  shame." — (P.  24.)  This  he  deems  an  object  worthy 
of  a  special  intervention  of  God,  worthy  also  of  a  sacrifice  of  animal  life  to 
secure  its  accomplishment;  and  being  so  secured,  he  thinks  it  quite  natural 
that  the  first  pair  might  afterwards  have  felt  themselves  perfectly  at  liberty  to 
use,  for  the  sacred  purposes  of  worship,  what  they  had  been  taught  to  con- 
sider at  their  service  for  the  lower  purposes  of  corporeal  clothing.  This 
inference  might  certainly  have  been  legitimate,  if  the  premises  on  which  it 
is  founded  had  been  accurately  stated.  But  there  we  object.  If  corporeal 
clothing  alone  had  been  the  intention  of  the  act,  it  would  have  been  the  fruit 
of  a  needless  interposition, — the  more  so,  as  our  first  parents  were  themselves 
powerfully  prompted  to  seek  for  clothing,  and  had  already  found  a  temporary 
relief.  When  the  instincts  and  feelings  of  nature  were  manifestly  so  alive  to 
the  object,  is  it  to  be  conceived  that  the  ingenuity  and  «kiH  which  proved 
sufficient  to  accomplish  so  many  other  operations  for  their  natural  support 
and  comfort,  should  have  been  incompetent  here  ?  It  is  altogether  incredi- 
ble. On  simply  natural  grounds,  the  action  admits  of  no  adequate  explana- 
tion, and  must  ever  appear  above  the  occasion —consequently  unworthy  of 
God.  Besides,  how  anomalous,  especially  in  a  historical  revelation,  which 
ever  gives  the  foremost  place  to  the  moral  element  in  God's  character  and 
ways,  if  He  should  have  appeared  thus  solicitous  about  the  decent  and  com- 
fortable clothing  of  men's  bodies,  and  yet  have  left  them  wholly  in  the  dark 
as  to  the  way  of  getting  peace  and  quietness  to  their  consciences !  Such  must 
have  been  the  case  with  our  first  parents,  if  they  were  thrown  entirely  upon 
their  own  resources  in  the  presentation  of  sacrificial  offerings.  And  so  Mr. 
Davison  himself  substantially  admits.  For  while  he  endeavors  to  account 
naturally,  and  by  means  of  the  ordinary  principles  and  feelings  of  piety,  for 
the  offering  of  animal  life  in  sacrifice  to  God,  considered  simply  as  an  ex- 
pression of  penitence  in  the  offerer,  or  of  his  sense  of  deserved  punishment 
for  sin,  he  denies  it  could  properly  be  regarded  as  an  expiation  or  atonement 
of  guilt;  and  hence  postpones  this  higher  aspect  of  sacrifice  altogether,  till 
the  law  of  Moses,  when  he  conceives  it  was  for  the  first  time  introduced.  Up 
till  that  period,  therefore,  sacrificial  worship  was  but  a  species  of  natural  re- 
ligion; and  man  had  no  proper  ground  from  God  to  expect,  in  answer  to  his 
offerings,  the  assurance  of  divine  pardon  and  acceptance.  But  this,  we  con- 
tend, had  it  been  real,  would  have  been  anomalous.  It  would  have  been  to 
represent  God  as  caring  originally  more  for  the  bodies  than  for  the  souls  of 
His  people;  and  as  utterly  ignoring  at  one  period  of  His  dealings,  what  at  an- 
other He  not  only  respects,  but  exalts  to  the  highest  place  of  importance. 
How  could  we  vindicate  the  pre-eminently  moral  character  of  God'sprinciples 
of  dealing,  and  the  unchangeable  nature  of  His  administration,  if  He  actually 
had  been  at  first  so  indifferent  in  regard  to  the  removal  of  guilt  from  the  con- 
science, and  afterwards  so  concerned  about  it  as  to  make  all  religion  hinge  on 
its  accomplishment  ?  Any  satisfactory  vindication,  in  such  a  case,  must  nec- 
essarily be  hopeless.  But  we  are  convinced  it  is  not  needed ;  the  moral  ele- 
ment is  pre-eminent  in  God's  dealings  toward  men.  It  was  this  which  gave 
its  significance  and  worth  to  His  act  of  clothing  our  first  parents,  as  painfully 
conscious  of  guilt,  with  the  skins  of  living  creatures,  whose  covering  of  inno- 
cence was  in  a  manner  put  on  them.  And  on  the  ground  alone  of  what  was 
moral  in  the  transaction,  symbolically  disclosing  itself  (as  usual  in  ancient 
times)  through  the  natural  and  corporeal,  can  we  account  for  the  sacrifice  of 
slain  victims  becoming  so  soon,  and  continuing  so  long,  the  grand  medium 
of  acceptable  communion  with  God.  If,  in  so  clothing  man,  God  did  mean 
to  give  indication  respecting  the  covering  of  man's  guilt,  and  men  of  faith 
understood  TTim  to  do  so,  all  becomes  intelligible,  consistent,  and  even  com- 


4U  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCBTPTUBK 

paratively  plain.  But  if  otherwise,  all  appears  strange,  irregular,  and  mys- 
terious.' 

We  are  not  disposed,  in  a  matter  of  this  kind,  to  lay  much  stress  upon 
philological  considerations.  Yet  it  is  not  unimportant  to  notice  that  tlw 
technical  and  constantly  recurring  expression  under  the  law,  for  the  desigu 
of  expiatory  offerings  (V^JJ  ">Epi?)»  seems  to  have  its  most  natural  explanation 

by  reference  to  that  fundamental  act  of  God,  considered  in  respect  to  its 
moral  import  To  cover  upon  him,  as  the  words  really  mean,  is  so  singular 
an  expression  for  making  an  atonement  for  guilt,  that  it  could  scarcely  have 
arisen  without  some  significant  fact  in  history  naturally  suggesting  it.  We 
certainly  have  such  a  feet  in  the  circumstance  of  God's  covering  upon  our 
first  parents  with  the  skins  of  animals,  slain  for  them,  if  that  was  intended  to 
denote  the  covering  of  their  guilt  and  shame,  as  pardoned  and  put  away  by 
God.  The  first  great  act  of  forgiveness  in  connection  with  the  sacrifice  of 
life,  would  thus  not  unfitly  have  supplied  a  sacrificial  language,  as  well  as 
formed  the  basis  of  a  sacrificial  worship. 

But  if  some  collateral  support  may  be  derived  from  this  quarter  to  the  view 
we  have  advanced,  we  certainly  must  disclaim  being  indebted  to  another  phi- 
lological consideration,  more  commonly  urged  by  the  advocates  of  the  divine 
origin  of  sacrifice.  We  refer  to  the  argument  so  much  pressed  by  Lightfoot, 
Magee,  and  others  still  in  the  present  day,  and  based  on  what  is  regarded  as 
a  more  exact  rendering  of  Gen.  iy.  7,  as  if  it  should  be,  "If  thou  doest  well, 
shalt  thou  not  be  accepted?  and  if  thou  doest  not  well,  a  sin-offering  lielh  at 
the  door."  Magee  calls  this  "the  plain,  natural,  and  significant  interpreta- 
tion" of  the  words,  and  vindicates  it  at  great  length — more  especially  on  three 
grounds:  1.  That  the  word  translated  sin  (JiKBn)  is  very  frequently  used  in 
the  sense  of  sin-offering;  2.  That  when  so  used,  it  is  usually  coupled  (though 
a  feminine  noun)  with  a  verb  in  the  masculine;  and  3.  That  the  verb  con- 
nected with  it  here,  properly  has  respect  to  an  animal  (]>n),  and  literally  de- 
notes couching  or  lying  down — quite  appropriately  said  of  a  beast,  but  not  so 
of  sin.  A  single  fact  is  perfectly  sufficient  to  dispose  of  the  whole;  the  fact, 
namely,  that  the  Hebrew  term  for  sin  never  bears  the  import  of  sin-offering 
till  the  period  of  the  law,  and  could  not  indeed  do  so,  as  till  then  what  were 
distinctively  called  sin-offerings  were  unknown.  To  give  the  passage  this  turn, 
therefore,  is  to  put  an  arbitrary  and  unwarranted  sense  upon  the  principal 
word,  as  there  used;  and  nothing  but  the  high  authority  of  such  men  as 
Lightfoot  and  Magee  could  have  given  it  the  currency  which  it  has  so  long 
obtained  in  this  country.  The  real  explanation  of  the  feminine  noun  being 
coupled  with  a  masculine  verb,  is  to  be  found  in  the  personification  of  sin  as 
a  wild  beast,  or  cunning  tempter  to  eviL  And  the  whole  passage  bears  re- 
spect to  the  circumstances  of  the  first  temptation,  and  can  only,  indeed,  be 
correctly  understood  when  these  are  kept  in  view:  "And  Jehovah  said  unto 
Cain,  Why  art  thou  wroth?  and  why  is  thy  countenance  fallen?  Shall  there 
not,  if  thou  doest  good  (viz.,  in  regard  to  the  sacrifice),  be  acceptance  (or  lift- 
ing up)  ?  and  if  thou  doest  not  good,  sin  coucheth  at  the  door.  And  unto 
thee  shall  be  its  desire,  and  thou  shalt  rule  over  it."  The  last  words  are  sim- 
ply a  transference  to  sin,  in  its  relation  to  Cain,  of  what  was  originally  said 
of  Eve  in  her  relation  to  Adam  (Gen.  iii.  16);  and  many  Jewish  (see,  for  ex- 
ample, the  exposition  of  Sola,  Lindenthall,  and  Baphall)  as  well  as  Christian 
interpreters  have  discerned  the  allusion,  and  had  respect  to  it  in  their  exposi- 
tion. Our  translators,  however,  have  unhappily  understood  the  parties  spoken 
of  to  be  Cain  and  Abel,  instead  of  Cain  and  sin,  and  thereby  greatly  obscured 
the  meaning.  The  object  of  the  divine  expostulation  with  Cain  is  evidently 
to  show  him,  in  the  first  instance,  that  the  evil  he  frowned  at  really  lay  with 
himself,  in  his  refusing  to  acknowledge  and  serve  God,  as  his  brother  did.  It 

'  Davison's  internal  reason,  as  he  calls  it  (p.  84),  against  the  atoning  character  of  the  ante- 
legal  oblations — that  such  oblations,  even  under  the  law,  atoned  only  for  ceremonial  of- 
fences, which  of  necessity  had  no  existence  in  earlier  times,  proceeds  on  a  not  uncommon 
misconception  of  the  law  of  Moses  respecting  sacrifice,  which  will  be  taken  up  at  its  proper 
place.  See  vol.  ii.  ch.  2.  see.  5. 


THE  TYPICAL  RELATION  OF  ISEAEL  IN  CANAAN.    415 

he  would  still  take  this  course,  the  ground  of  complaint  should  be  removed; 
he  would  find  acceptance,  as  well  as  his  brother.  But  if  he  refused,  then 
there  was  but  one  alternative,— he  could  not  get  rid  of  sin :  like  an  evil  genius, 
it  lay  couching  at  the  door,  ready  to  prevail  over  him;  but  it  was  for  him  to 
do  the  manly  part,  and  assert  his  superiority  over  it  In  short,  he  is  reminded 
by  a  silent  reference  to  the  sad  circumstances  of  the  fall,  that  giving  way  to 
sin,  as  he  was"  doing,  was  allowing  the  weaker  principle  of  his  nature  (repre- 
sented by  the  woman  in  that  memorable  transaction)  to  gain  the  ascendant, 
while  it  became  him,  by  cleaving  to  the  right,  to  keep  it  in  subjection;  and  it 
was  implied,  that  if  he  failed  in  this,  a  second  fall  should  inevitably  follow, 
instead  of  rising,  he  must  sink. 

While,  however,  we  reject  the  argument  commonly  derived  from  this  pas 
sage  in  behalf  of  the  divine  origin  of  sacrifice,  we  derive  an  argument  from  it 
of  another  kind— viz.,  from  the  explicit  manner  in  which  it  connects  doing 
good  with  the  acceptable  presentation  of  sacrifice,  and  its  representing  sin  as 
unforgiven,  unsubdued,  reigning  in  the  heart  and  conduct,  if  sacrifice  was  not 
so  performed.  Had  sacrifice  not  been  essentially  of  God;  had  it  not  required 
the  humble  and  childlike  heart  of  faith  to  present  it  aright;  had  it  not  car- 
ried  along  with  it,  when  so  presented,  the  blessing  of  forgiveness  and  grace 
from  Heaven,  we  can  not  understand  how  such  singular  importance  should 
have  been  attached  to  it.  Like  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  now,  it  has  all  the 
appearance  of  having  then  been  the  great  touchstone  of  an  accepted  and 
blessed,  or  a  guilty  and  rejected  condition;  not  one  of  many,  as  it  would 
have  been  if  devised  by  man,  but  standing  comparatively  alone  as  an  all-im- 
portant ordinance  of  God. 


APPENDIX    D. 

DOES  THE  ORIGINAL  RELATION  OF  THE  SEED  OF 
ABRAHAM  TO  THE  LAND  OF  CANAAN  AFFORD  ANY 
GROUND  FOR  EXPECTING  THEIR  FINAL  RETURN 
TO  IT?— P.  346. 

THIS  question  very  naturally  suggests  itself  in  connection  with  the  subject 
discussed  in  the  text,  although,  from  its  involving  matter  of  controversy,  we 
deemed  it  better  not  to  enter  upon  it  there.  The  view  presented,  however, 
of  the  relations  of  the  covenant  people,  as  connected  with  the  occupation  o/ 
Canaan,  leads  naturally  to  the  conclusion,  that  their  peculiar  connection  with 
that  territory  has  ceased  with  the  other  temporary  expedients  and  shadows  to 
which  it  belonged.  The  people  had  certain  ends  of  an  immediate  kind  to 
fulfil,  by  means  of  their  residence  in  the  land— being  placed  there  as  repre- 
sentatives and  bearers  of  the  covenant,  more  fully  to  exhibit  its  character  and 
tendencies,  and  to  operate  with  more  effect  upon  the  nations  around.  But 
while  intended  to  serve  this  present  purpose,  their  possession  of  the  land  was 
also  designed  to  be  to  the  eye  of  faith  an  earnest  and  a  pledge  of  the  final 
occupation  of  a  redeemed  and  glorified  earth  by  Christ,  and  His  elect  seed  of 
blessing.  This  is  the  proper  antitype  to  the  possession  of  the  inheritance  by 
the  natural  seed,  in  so  far  as  that  could  justly  be  accounted  typical. 

One  can  easily  perceive,  therefore,  that  the  representation  entirely  fails  in 
its  foundation,  which  is  often  made  by  recent  writers  on  unfulfilled  prophecy, 
viz.,  that  the  original  possession  of  the  land  of  Canaan  by  the  seed  of  Jacob 
was  "  only  a  token  and  earnest  of  a  more  glorious  occupation  of  the  land  here- 
after to  be  enjoyed  by  them."  It  is  contrary  to  the  nature  of  prophecies  of 
this  sort,  as  determined  by  the  history  of  previous  fulfilments,  to  make  an 


416  THE  TYPOLOGI  OF  SCBIPTUBE. 

event  foreshadow  itself — to  make  one  occupation  of  the  land  of  Canaan  th« 
type  of  another  and  future  occupation  of  it.  As  well  might  it  be  alleged, 
that  the  natural  Israel  having  eaten  manna  in  the  desert,  was  a  type  of  their 
having  to  eat  it  again,  or  that  their  former  killing  of  the  passover-lamb  fore- 
shadowed their  doing  so  hereafter  in  some  new  style,  as  that  their  ancient 
occupation  of  the  land  of  Canaan  typified  a  future  and  better  possession  of  it. 

It  is  possible  enough,  however,  that  what  we  have  put  here  in  the  form  of 
extravagant  suppositions,  will  be  readily  embraced  by  many  who  believe  in 
the  future  restoration  of  Israel  to  Canaan.  An  entire  reproduction  of  the 
old  is  now  contended  for,  as  necessary  to  establish  the  literal  truthfulness  of 
Scripture.  And  among  other  things  to  be  expected,  we  are  told,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  return  of  Israel  to  Canaan,  is  the  building  anew,  and  on  a  style 
of  higher  magnificence,  of  the  material  temple,  the  resuscitation  of  the  Levit- 
ical  priesthood,  and  the  re-institution  of  the  fleshly  sacrifices  and  pompous 
ceremonial  of  the  ancient  worship.  To  hold  this,  indeed,  is  only  to  follow  to 
its  legitimate  results  the  idea  that  the  former  possession  of  Canaan  was  typ- 
ical of  another;  since,  if  that  earlier  possession  gave  promise  of  a  later  one, 
the  establishment  of  the  religious  economy  connected  with  it  must  nave  fore- 
shadowed its  future  restoration.  But  the  notion,  in  this  form  of  it,  stands  in 
direct  antithesis  to  the  whole  genius  of  the  New  Testament  dispensation,  and 
to  some  of  the  most  explicit  statements  also  of  New  Testament  Scripture.  If 
any  thing  be  plain  in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  is,  that  every  thing  there 
assumes  a  spiritual  character  and  a  universal  aspect,  as  contradistinguished 
from  the  local  and  fleshly.  Foreseeing  this,  the  prophet  Malachi  had  said 
that,  in  the  coming  age,  "incense  and  a  pure  offering  should  in  every  place 
be  offered  to  the  Lord;"  and  our  Lord  Himself  announced  to  the  woman  of 
Samaria  the  approaching  abolition  of  all  local  distinctions :  "The  hour  com- 
eth,  when  neither  in  this  mountain,  nor  yet  in  Jerusalem,  shall  men  worship 
the  Father;"  that  is,  shall  not  regard  worship  rendered  in  these  places  as 
more  sacred  or  more  acceptable  than  worship  paid  elsewhere.  The  law,  with 
all  its  limitations  of  time  and  place,  its  bodily  lustrations  and  prescnbed  ser- 
vices, was  for  the  nonage  of  the  Church,  and  in  form  falls  away,  remains  only 
in  spirit,  when  the  Church  reaches  her  maturity.  Such,  unquestionably,  is 
the  argument  of  the  apostle  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Galatians;  and  it  would  sure- 
ly be  to  run  counter  to  all  sense  and  reason,  if,  when  the  furthest  extreme 
from  the  nonage  condition  is  attained,  the  nonage  food  and  discipline  should 
return.  As  well  might  one  expect  to  hear  of  angels  being  put  into  leading- 
strings  !  Nay,  it  is  expressly  declared  that  the  abolition  of  the  outward  forms 
and  services  of  Judaism  was  on  account  of  its  "weakness  and  unprofitable- 
ness" (Heb.  vii.  18);  and  that  the  law,  which  ordained  such  things,  was  of 
necessity  changed  or  disannulled  with  the  introduction  of  a  new  priesthood 
made  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek  (Heb.  vii.  12).  And  hence  those  who, 
in  the  apostolic  age,  insisted  on  the  continued  observance  of  the  now  anti- 
quated rites  of  Judaism,  were  expostulated  with  by  the  apostle  as  virtually 
making  void  the  work  of  Christ,  and  acting  as  if  the  Church  stood  at  where 
it  was  before  He  came  into  the  world  (Gal.  v.  2-4;  CoL  ii.  14-23). 

Where  such  scriptural  testimonies,  so  plain  in  their  terms,  and  so  conclu- 
sive in  their  import,  have  failed  to  produce  conviction,  it  would  be  vain  to 
expect  any  thing  from  human  argumentation.  It  may  be  proper,  however, 
to  present  briefly,  and  more  formally  than  has  yet  been  done,  what  we  deem 
the  proper  view  of  Israel's  typical  relations,  with  respect  more  immediately 
to  the  subject  now  under  consideration.  The  natural  Israel,  then,  as  God's 
chosen  people  from  among  the  peoples  of  the  earth,  were  types  of  the  elect 
seed,  the  spiritual  and  royal  priesthood,  whom  Christ  was  to  choose  out  of 
the  world,  and  redeem  for  His  everlasting  kingdom.  When  this  latter  pur- 
pose began  to  be  carried  into  effect,  the  former,  as  a  matter  of  course,  began 
to  give  way — precisely  as  the  shedding  of  Christ's  blood  upon  the  cross  anti- 
quated the  whole  sacrificial  system  of  Moses.  Hence,  to  indicate  that  the 
type,  in  this  respect,  has  passed  into  the  antitype,  believers  in  Christ,  of  Gen- 
tile as  well  as  of  Jewish  origin,  are  called  Abraham's  seed  (GaL  iii.  29);  Israel- 
ites (ch.  vi.  16;  Eph.  ii.  12,  19);  comers  unto  Mount  Zion  (Heb.  xii.  22);  cjti- 


THE  TYPICAL,  RELATION  OF  ISRAEL  IN  CANAAN.     «n 

•ens  of  the  free  or  heavenly  Jerusalem  (i&.;  GaL  iv.  26);  the  circumcision 
(PML  iii.  3;  CoL  ii.  11);  and  in  the  Apocalypse,  which  is  written  throughout 
in  the  language  of  symbol  and  type,  they  are  even  called  Jews  (ch.  ii.  9); 
while  the  sealed  company,  in  ch.  vii.,  who  undoubtedly  represent  the  whole 
multitude  of  the  redeemed,  are  identified  with  the  sealed  of  the  twelve  tribes 
of  Israel.  Further,  this  spiritual  Israel  of  the  New  Testament  are  expressly 
declared  to  be  "  heirs  according  to  the  promise  "  (GaL  iii.  29)— the  promise, 
namely,  given  to  Abraham;  for  it  is  as  Abraham's  seed  that  they  are  desig- 
nated heirs;  and,  of  course,  the  possession  of  which  they  are  heirs  can  be  no 
other  than  that  given  by  promise  to  Abraham.  But  then,  as  the  antitypical 
things  have  now  entered,  not  the  old  narrow  and  transitory  inheritance  is  to 
be  thought  of,  but  that  which  it  typically  represented — "the  inheritance  in- 
corruptible, undefiled,  and  that  fadeth  not  away,"  which  now  as  an  object  of 
hope  tekes  its  place.  Accordingly,  when  the  higher  things  of  the  Gospel  are 
fairly  introduced,  it  is  to  this  nobler  inheritance,  as  alone  remaining,  that  the 
desires  and  expectations  of  the  heirs  of  salvation  are  pointed.  The  apostles 
never  allude  to  any  other,  when  handling  the  case  either  of  believing  Jews 
or  converted  Gentiles;  and  when  that  inheritance  of  endless  blessing  and 
glory, — the  inheritance,  as  we  believe  it  to  be,  of  this  earth  itself  in  a  state 
of  heavenly  perfection, — when  this  shall  become  the  possession  of  a  redeemed 
and  glorified  Church,  then  shall  the  promise  contained  in  the  Old  Testament 
type  be  fully  realized. 

But  may  not  something  specially  belonging  to  Israel  be  included  in  the 
antitype  ?— something  to  distinguish  the  natural  line  of  believers  from  those 
who  belong  to  the  seed  only  by  spiritual  ties  ?  So,  sometimes,  it  is  argued, 
as  in  Israel  Restore^,  p.  193:  "Do  they  tell  us  the  literal  Israel  was  a  type  of 
the  spiritual  ?  We  instantly  grant  it.  Do  they  tell  us  again,  that  therefore 
there  is  a  spiritual  fulfilment  of  the  covenant  to  believers  ?  We  grant  it  also. 
But  all  this,  we  say,  is  nothing  to  the  point  You  must  go  farther.  What 
you  need  to  prove  is,  that  Israel  of  old,  whose  descendants  still  exist,  was  so 
a  type  of  the  spiritual  Israel,  that  they  were  finally  to  merge,  and  be  lost  in 
them  whom  they  typified."  There  is  no  need  for  any  such  proof:  the  point 
in  question  is  implied  in  the  very  fact  of  their  being  types;  for,  as  such,  they 
of  necessity  merged  and  became  lost  in  the  antitype.  Was  not  the  Paschal 
Lamb  merged  and  lost  in  Christ?  And  the  veil  of  the  temple  in  Christ's 
body  ?  And  David  in  the  Son  of  Mary  ?  Every  type  must,  as  a  matter  of 
necessity,  share  the  same  fate;  and  if  any  thing  peculiar  is  reserved  for  the 
land  or  people,  who  served  a  typical  purpose,  it  must  be  on  some  other  ac- 
count than  this  that  it  shall  belong  to  them. 

More  commonly,  however,  the  stress  of  the  argument,  as  connected  with 
the  original  position  of  the  Israelites,  is  laid  upon  the  terms  of  the  covenant 
with  Abraham,  in  which  Canaan  is  spoken  of  as  their  sure  and  abiding  pos- 
session. So,  among  many  others,  Kurtz  ( Geschichte  des  Allen  Bandes,  p.  128), 
who  says,  "In  the  renewed  promise  (Gen.  xvii.  8),  the  possession  of  the 
land  is  called  an  everlasting  possession,  as  the  covenant  is  also  called  an  ever- 
lasting covenant — (Vers.  7,  13.)  That  the  covenant  should  be  called  an 
everlasting  one  can  not  appear  strange,  as  it  is  a  covenant  that  must  reach 
its  end.  If  the  fruit  of  the  covenant  is  of  a  permanent  kind,  such  also  must 
be  the  covenant  itself,  of  which  it  is  the  fulfilment  The  promise  of  an  ever- 
lasting possession  of  the  land  had  respect  primarily  to  the  pilgrim-condition 
of  Abraham,  which  was  such  as  not  to  admit  of  his  possessing  a  single  foot^ 
breadth  in  it  as  his  own.  But  the  laud  of  promise  is  the  inheritance  and 
possession  of 'his  seed,  and  remains  so  forever,  though  Israel  may  have  been 
exiled  from  the  land,  and  whether  the  exile  may  have  lasted  seventy  or  two 
thousand  years."  True,  no  doubt,  if  the  relative  position  of  things  continues 
substantially  the  same  during  the  longer,  as  during  the  shorter  period  of 
exile;  but  not,  surely,  if  they  have  undergone  an  essential  change.  The  seed 
of  Abraham  has  become  unspeakably  ennobled  in  Christ,  and  it  is  but  natural 
to  infer  that  the  inheritance  also  shall  obtain  a  corresponding  elevation.  The 
peculiar  distinction  of  Canaan,  and  that  which  most  of  all  rendered  it  an  in- 
neritanc«  of  blessing,  was  its  being  God's  land.  And  if  in  Christ  the  whole 


418  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SOKIPTUEE. 

earth  becomes  in  the  same  sense  the  Lord's,  that  Canaan  was  of  old  claimed 
to  be  His,  then  the  promise  will  embrace  the  earth;  nor  will  it  be,  in  such  a 
case,  as  if  Canaan  were  lost  to  any  portion  of  the  seed,  but  rather  as  if  Canaan 
were  indefinitely  widened  and  enlarged  to  receive  them.  In  like  manner, 
believers  have  the  promise  that  they  shall  worship  God  in  His  heavenly  tem- 
ple; and  yet,  when  the  heavenly  appears  to  John  in  its  glory,  he  sees  no 
temple  in  it  Does  the  promise  therefore  fail?  On  the  contrary,  it  is  in  the 
highest  sense  fulfilled.  The  no-temple  simply  means  that  all  has  become 
temple;  alike  sacred  and  glorious;  just  as  we  may  say,  the  no-Canaan  in 
Christ  has  become  all-Canaan.  The  inheritance  is  not  lost;  it  has  only  ceased 
to  become  a  part,  and  extends  as  far  and  wide  as  Christ's  peculiar  possession 
reaches. — (Ps.  ii.)  Here,  however,  we  tread  on  the  confines  of  prophecy,  a 
field  on  which  at  present  we  do  not  mean  to  enter.  We  simply  add,  in  con- 
firmation of  what  has  now  been  advanced  regarding  the  Abrahamic  covenant, 
that  as  the  covenant  is  called  everlasting,  and  the  land  also  an  everlasting 
possession,  so  circumcision  is  called  everlasting:  "My  covenant  shall  be  in 
your  flesh  for  an  everlasting  covenant." — (Ver.  13.)  But  we  know  for  cer- 
tain, that  this  was  not  intended  to  be  in  the  strict  sense  perpetual.  Baptism 
has  virtually  taken  the  place  of  circumcision;  and  circumcision  should  have 
been  dropped  when  Christ  appeared.  It  is  the  sin  of  the  Jews  to  continue 
it,  and  it  can  not  now  be  to  them  the  pledge  of  blessing.  See  "Prophecy  in 
Us  Distinctive  Nature,"  etc.,  Part  ii.  ch.  ii.  where  the  subject  is  discussed  at 
some  length. ) 


APPENDIX    E. 

THE  RELATION  OF  CANAAN  TO  THE  STATE  OF  FINAL 
REST  (HEB.  iv.  i,  10).— P.  361. 

THE  view  presented  in  the  text  upon  this  subject,  and  the  conclusion  ar- 
rived at,  substantially  coincide  with  the  argument  maintained  in  the  fourth 
chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  And  as  a  somewhat  intricate  turn  is 
there  given  to  the  line  of  thought  pursued  in  the  epistle,  I  shall  here  refer  a 
little  more  particularly  to  the  passage,  as  well  for  the  purpose  of  explicating 
its  proper  meaning,  as  for  confirmation  of  what  has  been  said  upon  the  sub- 
ject itself.  This  part  of  the  epistle  is  introduced  by  an  exhortation  in  chapter 
iii.  to  steadfastness  in  the  faith,  and  to  diligence  in  the  use  of  the  means  nat- 
urally fitted  to  secure  it;  and  the  exhortation  is  further  confirmed  by  a  refer- 
ence to  the  words  employed  for  the  same  purpose  by  the  Psalmist  in  Ps.  xcv., 
who  there  calls  upon  the  men  of  his  day  to  beware  of  falling  into  the  apostasy, 
and  incurring  the  doom  of  their  forefathers  in  the  desert,  when  they  provoked 
God  by  refusing  to  go  forward  in  faith  upon  His  word  to  occupy  the  land  ol 
Canaan,  and  He,  in  consequence,  sware  in  His  wrath  that  they  should  not 
enter  into  His  rest.  Catching  up  this  word  rest—Ood's  rest — contained  in 
the  divine  utterance  of  judgment  (as  given  by  the  Psalmist),  the  inspired 
writer  goes  on,  at  chap.  iv.  1,  to  discourse  of  the  relation  in  which  believers 
under  the  Gospel  stand  to  it.  He  reminds  them  that  they  had,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  succeeded  to  the  heritage  of  promise  given  in  former  ages  to  God's 
people  concerning  it;  it  had  come  down  as  an  entail  of  blessing  to  them,  and 
might  now,  precisely  as  of  old,  be  either  appropriated  by  faith,  or  forfeited 
by  unbelief.  Not  only  does  he  thus  connect  believers  under  the  Gospel  with 
believers  tinder  the  law  in  respect  to  the  promised  rest,  but  the  promise  itself 
he  connects  with  the  very  commencement  of  the  world's  history— with  that 
rest  of  God  which  He  is  said  to  have  taken,  when  He  ceased  from  all  His 
works  which  He  created  and  made.— (Gen.  ii  2.)  This  was  emphatically 


RELATION  OF  CANAAN  TO  STATE  OF  FINAL  REST.    ±19 

God's  rest,  the  only  thing  expressly  characterized  as  such  in  the  history  ol 
the  divine  dispensations;  and  the  apostle  points  to  it  as  a  noteworthy  thing, 
that  while  the  works,  from  which  God  is  thus  said  to  have  rested,  were  fin- 
ished at  the  creation  of  the  world,  the  promise  of  the  land  of  Canaan  should 
somehow,  thousands  of  years  afterwards,  have  been  associated  with  it.  Yet  he 
does  not  (as  is  too  commonly  supposed)  simply  identify  the  two;  while  both 
he  and  the  Psalmist  speak  of  exclusion  from  Canaan  as  involving  for  ancient 
Israel  exclusion  from  an  interest  in  God's  rest:  they  both  also  conceive  the 
possibility  of  having  an  inheritance  in  Canaan,  and  yet  wanting  a  partici- 
pation in  the  rest  of  God.  On  this  account  the  Psalmist  had  plied  his  con- 
temporaries when  they  were  in  Canaan  with  the  admonition  to  beware,  lest, 
by  provoking  God,  they  should  still  lose  their  interest  in  God's  rest  And 
now,  again,  the  writer  of  this  epistle,  laying  hold  of  the  words  of  the  Psalm- 
ist, repeats  the  same  warning,  and  calls  upon  Christians  to  take  good  heed, 
that  by  steadfastly  adhering  to  the  faith  and  obedience  of  the  Gospel,  they 
should  secure  their  entrance  into  that  rest  of  God  which  remains  for  them, 
as  it  has  remained  for  God's  people  in  every  age — the  blessed  result  and  con- 
summation of  a  life  of  faith. 

Such  are  the  leading  points  in  the  line  of  thought  pursued  in  this  portion 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  viewed  simply  in  itself,  and  without  regard  to 
the  debatable  questions  and  conflicting  views  which  have  been  too  often 
brought  into  it.  The  plainest  reader  can  easily  perceive  the  connection,  when 
it  is  pat  in  a  distinct  and  orderly  manner  before  him.  But  there  is  a  marked 
peculiarity  in  the  representation  as  first  given  by  the  Psalmist,  and  silently 
adopted  by  the  apostle,  which  must  be  noticed  in  order  to  make  the  inspired 
exposition  appear  altogether  natural,  and  to  apprehend  the  full  depth  of 
meaning  involved  in  it.  For,  it  will  be  observed,  the  language  of  the  psalm, 
in  naming  the  rest  in  question,  strikingly  differs  from  that  of  the  original 
passage  which  relates  to  it,  though  no  comment  is  made  on  the  diversity  by 
the  author  of  the  epistle.  He  takes  the  word  just  as  he  finds  it  But  it  is 
remarkable  that  the  utterance  which  it  connects  with  the  oath  of  God  is  no- 
where found  in  the  earlier  Scriptures  precisely  in  the  form  there  given  to  it 
In  the  passage  more  directly  referred  to  by  the  Psalmist,  the  words  are,  "As 
truly  as  I  live  ....  if  they  shall  see  "  (that  is,  they  shall  certainly  not  see) 
"  the  land  which  I  sware  unto  their  fathers." — (Num.  xiv.  21-23. )  In  another 
verse  of  the  same  chapter  (ver.  30),  the  declaration  is  again  repeated,  and 
very  nearly  in  the  same  words.  It  was  undoubtedly  these  sayings  which  the 
Psalmist  refers  to  when  he  speaks  of  God  reversing,  as  it  were,  His  oath — 
swearing  in  regard  to  the  generation  that  had  provoked  Him,  that  they  should 
not  possess  what  He  had  previously  sworn  to  their  fathers  to  give  them.  But 
why,  in  pointing  to  this  fresh  oath  or  asseveration,  should  He  have  so  re- 
markably departed  from  the  language  of  Moses?  Why,  instead  of  saying, 
They  shall  not  see,  or  they  shall  not  come  into  the  land,  which  I  sware  to 
give  to  their  fathers,  should  he  have  represented  God  as  swearing,  They  shall 
not  enter  into  my  rest  t  There  must  have  been  some  reason  for  this;  and,  in- 
deed, there  needs  no  great  search  to  discover  it  The  Psalmist  would  give 
the  old  word  in  its  substance,  but  with  a  difference,  such  as  might  serve  to 
convey  an  insight  into  the  spiritual  meaning  involved  in  it,  and  let  the  men 
of  his  own  generation  see — the  carnal  and  ungodly  among  them — that  they 
were  substantially  on  a  footing  with  those  who  perished  in  the  wilderness. 
They  were  living,  indeed,  in  the  land  promised  to  their  fathers;  but  what  of 
that?  The  promise  was  never  made  to  secure  for  them  simply  the  possession 
of  so  much  territory,  as  if  in  that  alone  they  could  find  a  proper  and  satisfy- 
ing good.  It  could  only  be  realized  in  the  sense  meant  by  God,  and  neces- 
sary to  His  people's  well-being,  if  the  land  was  held  as  God's  land,  and  the 
rest  it  brought  was  enjoyed  as  a  participation  in  God  s  rest  If  such,  how- 
ever, were  the  case,  it  must  plainly  follow,  that  for  those  who  had  entered  the 
land,  but  who  had  not  also  entered  into  rest  in  this  higher  sense,  the  promise 
still  remained  essentially  unfulfilled;  they  were  but  formally  in  possession  of 
the  children's  heritage,  while  in  reality  they  knew  nothing  of  the  children's 
blessing,  and  were  in  danger  of  being  cast  out  as  aliens.  So  that  to  them 


420  THE  TYPOLOGY  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

also  reached  the  words  of  exciwon  pronounced  by  God  against  their  fathers, 
"  They  shall  not  enter  into  my  rest  '  No,  it  is  not  with  me  they  are  sojuuru- 
ers;  and  whatever  rest  they  may  enjoy,  it  is  not  that  rest  which  I  engaged  to 
share  with  my  chosen. 

Bat  what  precisely  is  meant  by  this  rest  of  God  in  its  relation  to  God's 
people  ?  It  has,  we  see,  been  set  before  them  under  all  dispensations  us  the 
one  grand  good  which  they  are  invited  to  make  their  own;  but  which  those 
who  in  ancient  times  provoked  God  by  their  unbelief  and  waywardness  were 
out  off  from  inheriting — which  still  also  professing  Christians  are  in  danger, 
on  similar  accounts,  of  forfeiting.  What,  then,  is  it  ?  Or  how  in  reality  is  it 
to  be  entered  on?  That  it  is  not  simply  to  be  identified  with  heaven  IE  evi- 
dent; since  otherwise  it  could  not  have  been  so  connected,  as  it  was  bj  the 
Psalmist,  with  a  proper  realization  of  the  promised  inheritance  of  Canaai>,  as 
at  least  a  partial  enjoyment  of  the  blessing;  nor  indeed  can  it  be  absolutely 
tied  to  any  one  place,  region,  or  time.  "For  they  that  have  believed  enter 
into  the  rest; "  that  is,  they  do  it  by  virtue  of  their  belief,  and,  in  a  measure, 
whenever  they  have  it. 

In  proof  of  this,  the  inspired  writer  carries  his  readers  back  to  the  creation 
of  the  world,  and  shows  how,  by  the  sanctification  and  blessing  of  tne  seventh 
day,  it  was  from  the  first  man's  calling  and  destination  to  share  in  God's  rest. 
But  this  destination,  and  God's  purpose  in  connection  with  it,  were  inter- 
rupted by  the  fall.  They  were  for  the  moment  foiled,  and  rendered  incapa- 
ble of  being  carried  into  execution  after  the  primeval  pattern;  but  they  were 
by  no  means  abandoned.  The  eternal  purpose  could  not  be  frustrated;  the 
calling  of  God  was  here  necessarily  without  repentance;  and  the  economy  of 
grace  entered,  that  it  might  be  made  good  in  a  way  consistent  with  the  attri- 
butes of  His  character.  Perpetually,  therefore,  as  the  plan  of  God  proceeds, 
there  must  in  substance  be  sounded  in  men's  ears  the  call  to  share  alike  in 
God's  works  and  God's  rest — to  imbibe  the  spirit  of  the  one,  and  enter  into 
the  participation  of  the  other.  And  sometimes,  as  in  the  passages  now  under 
consideration,  the  call  takes  a  more  explicit  form  in  this  direction,  in  order  to 
keep  before  us  the  thought,  how  God's  purpose  in  redemption  coalesces  with 
His  original  purpose  in  creation,  and  how  the  final  issue  of  the  one  shall 
bring  the  realization  of  the  good  contemplated  in  the  other.  It  tells  us  that 
redemption  in  all  its  stages-  -even  in  such  preliminary  and  typical  movements 
as  were  connected  with  the  possession  of  Canaan,  and  still  more,  of  course, 
in  the  riper  movements  and  results  pertaining  to  the  work  of  Christ — ever 
aims  at  the  restoration  of  man  to  the  right  knowledge  and  use  of  God's  works, 
and  the  blessed  participation  of  God's  rest.  The  aim  can  be  attained  only  in 
part  now,  but  shall  be  perfectly  so  hereafter,  when  the  work  of  God  in  this 
higher  aspect  of  it  being  finished  by  the  bringing  in  of  the  new  heavens  and 
the  new  earth,  there  shall  be  administered  to  all  the  redeemed  a  full  as  well 
as  final  entrance  into  the  joy  of  their  Lord.  But  for  those  who  lived  in  the 
times  preceding  the  Gospel,  and  who  had  spiritual  insight  to  discern  the 
meaning  of  what  was  established,  the  external  rest  of  Canaan  should  (accord- 
ing to  both  the  Psalmist  and  the  apostle)  have  been  regarded,  not  as  the  ulti- 
mate boon  they  were  to  look  for,  but  as  the  sign  and  earnest  of  an  everlasting 
fellowship  with  God,  in  a  sabbatism  which  shall  be  in  complete  accordance 
with  His  own  perfect  and  glorious  nature. 


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